Graduated drivers licensing programs save lives
...from one state to the next. Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Wyoming are among the states with either no GDL program or one IIHS rates as "poor" says Russ Rader, spokesman for IIHS. "These are states with little or no restrictions on young drivers." "Take Hawaii as an example. Hawaii imposes a three-month mandatory learning period for beginning drivers. Hawaii requires inexperienced drivers to stay in the learner's permit stage for short period of time, but from our perspective, that's not a graduated licensing program," Rader says. Sound GDL programs have three "distinct phases" to a full graduated system, points out Rader. Rader says beginners must stay in each of the first two phases for a minimum amount of time, with the restrictions lasting until the driver turns 17. Rader says the three steps are a “supervised learner's period,” an “intermediate license” which allows the teen to drive unsupervised with certain limitations, and licensing with full privileges after completion of the first two phases. GDL apparently works, if results from Florida and South Carolina are any indication. Florida, which in 1996 became the first state to adopt GDL, has experienced a 21 percent drop in teen driver fatalities since the program got started. In South Carolina, the percentage of teenagers involved in crashes declined to 13 percent in 1999 from 14.5 percent in 1998, the year that state's GDL law took effect. Insurance industry observers such as Moraga cite teenage immaturity and inexperience behind the wheel as two of the driving forces fueling high crash rates among teens. Insurance companies, state and local governments, as well as many other organizations sponsor campaigns to reduce the number of teenage traffic fatalities. GDL programs save lives, prevent injuries, and decrease the number of auto insurance claims, helping to make auto insurance more affordable, says Moraga. Sobering statistics Underage drinking remains an element in teenage highway fatalities, although not as much as before GDL programs got under way. Among drivers 16 to 20 years of age, 22 percent who died in traffic accidents had a blood alcohol level at or above .10 percent. This is a sharp decrease from 49 percent in 1980. In some states, a blood alcohol level of .10 percent is the legal limit. In other states, .10 is well above the level where drivers are considered legally drunk. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and other organizations against underage drinking can attribute the drop in part to vigorous campaigns. GDL programs draw strong support from MADD. MADD President Wendy Hamilton says her organization "advocates that each state adopt laws providing that persons under 21 receive driver's licenses which are more restrictive than full licenses, unde...