Teen driver laws in many states contain “passenger restrictions” — minimum time periods that must elapse before a newly-licensed  16 or 17 year old driver may transport certain categories of people.  In general, nationwide, there are two types of standards.  The first prohibits teens from having any passengers for a certain time period such as three months, and then allows them to add “immediate family members” (those who live in the same place with them) during the next three months, and then finally a time when they may transport anyone, such as their friends.  A second model is family members only during the first three to six months and then no restrictions after that time.  Here in Connecticut, the rule adopted in 2008 is no passengers other than an adult supervising driver for six months, immediate family added during the next six months,  and then friends only after one year.

These laws exist because it is well documented that a teen driver’s risk of a crash goes up when he or she has even one passenger, and increases with each additional passenger. These restrictions are a critical part of Graduated Driver Laws; the federal STANDUP (Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection) Act, pending in Congress, proposes a national minimum standard for the number of months that teen drivers must wait before they can carry passengers.

The “no passengers” and “immediate family only” rules are relatively easy for parents to follow.  They know when their teen was licensed and who their immediate family members are. But the question arises:  how do other parents, teens, and fellow students know when a teen driver has been licensed long enough to legally carry passengers?  Of course, as is amply discussed elsewhere on this blog, the fact that a teen driver has been licensed for one year is no guarantee whatsoever that he or she is a safe driver.  On the other hand, it would seem to be a huge implementation issue for these passenger restrictions that parents and teens have no quick and easy way to know who can legally carry passengers.

Here in Connecticut, a group called the Teen Driving Safety Partnership is considering a proposal to deal with this problem.   The Partnership is developing a memo to the statewide association of high school principals, seeking one or more schools to volunteer to set aside space on the school’s website where parent and teens would voluntarily list the name of their teen driver when he or she has been licensed long enough to legally carry passengers.  The basic idea is that the school will establish on its website a password-protected link to the list; publicize the link and list; invite parents and teen drivers to add the teen driver’s name to the list when the prescribed minimum period has elapsed and the teen has not been convicted of a moving violation or had his or her license suspended or revoked; and remove the driver’s name if he or she is later convicted of a moving violation or receives a license suspension or revocation.  Volunteer schools will be asked to run the program for about six months, evaluate it with parents and teens, and report back to the Partnership on its use and effectiveness.

As with anything involving students and education, there are legal issues. The first is privacy rights; one parent or guardian of the teen driver will need to sign a written consent form allowing the teen driver’s name to be listed.  Second, the school or school district will need to post a strongly-worded disclaimer, stating that the list is voluntary; the school/district cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information when posted or thereafter; and ongoing compliance and accuracy are up to the parents and teens listed.  In other words, each school or school district will have to weigh the benefits of providing this information to parents and students with the risk that someone might rely on the information in taking a ride, get into a crash, and then try to hold the school responsible.

Passenger restrictions are plainly important to safe teen driving.  It would seem as though giving parents and students the ability, on their cell phones or computers, to get quick information about legal if not safe rides, could help the cause.

The Partnership and I would be very interested to hear from any readers who are aware of any similar program, and how it has worked.  Thanks.

Today would have been Reid’s 22nd birthday.

In this blog, I try not to be emotional or maudlin, but to use the conviction drawn from my experience with the worst case scenario of teen driving to convey to parents clear, sensible advice about keeping their teen drivers safe.  But I hope all of you loyal readers — consistently numbering about 5,000 per month  and 20,000 to 30,000 hits recently — will indulge me for today as I change the focus slightly, from how to keep your teen drivers safe from why it is so vital to do so.

I have often said that one of the keys to my story is not that I made an obvious mistake in parenting my son when he was driving, but rather that I didn’t.  I did what I thought the mainstream literature about teen driving was telling me to do and what I saw other parents doing.  Thus, one of the key points of this blog is that following the crowd is not only not enough, but also is really the wrong way to think about supervising your new drivers.  Teen driving is so risky that, other than taking the uncommon path of prohibiting your teens from driving until they are 18 or 19 or older — more mature and sensible — constant supervision and doing what relatively few parents do are the mandates.

My wishes on Reid’s birthday are that parents will take the time to educate themselves, to see through the many aspects of popular culture  and community that blind or shield us from the absolutely proactive role we need to play with our teen drivers, even if the efforts are perceived by friends and neighbors as overkill; and as a result will be more conservative in their decision-making.  This blog’s purpose is to point out what parents should be thinking about day-by-day as they make decisions about their teens getting behind the wheel.  My motivation, especially today, is to spare you having birthdays turn into memorials.

My sincere thanks to so many of you who read this blog, pass it on to others, email comments, and apply the information offered here to your own teens.  Together, we are making a difference.

One of the ways that parents can use technology to keep close track of their teen’s driving is to install a Global Positioning System in the teen’s car.  I have not researched the expense, reliability, or practicality of these systems, but there is no doubt that there are technology companies that are aggressively marketing these systems to parents for the specific purpose of conducting surveillance of their newly-licensed drivers.

So, it may be of great interest to traffic safety advocates, not just the law enforcement community, that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a police department’s secret installation of a GPS on the car of a suspected drug dealer violates the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of freedom from a search without a warrant.  A trial court said that the technique, used by the District of Columbia police, was legal, but an appeals court disagreed.

The case would seem to have the potential to implicate parents installing a GPS on a car driven by a teenager, either secretly or without the teen’s consent.  There are of course, obvious differences, legally and practically, between police officers trying to get information on someone suspected of criminal activity — the issue in the case is not whether surveillance is legal, but with ether surveillance without first getting a search warrant impermissible — and parents monitoring a teen’s behavior.  On the other hand, teen drivers, even those under age 18, have a variety of legal rights, including constitutional rights, and as lawyers involved in school discipline cases know, when students have rights and when they are subject to their parents’ rules can be complex issue.  So, traffic safety advocates in general and those concerned with safe teen driving in particulate will need to watch this case, to see if it implicates what can be one of the most effective tools for controlling teen drivers – tracking their movements in a car — with or without their knowledge and consent.

The Supreme Court case, to be argued in late 2011, is U.S. v Jones.

Yogi Berra is credited with saying,  “You can observe a lot just by watching.”

Part of my research for this blog is simply watching, to the extent I safely can, what other drivers, especially young ones, do when they are on the road.  A recent observation – neither surprising or groundbreaking – is that it is common to see young drivers wearing earphones or even headphones while they are driving, either the small plastic or rubber pieces that approximate the size of the inner part of the ear, or full-blown headgear that not only provides sound but is designed to block out most background noise.  I really didn’t think about the implications of this until I saw a young lady who was oblivious to an ambulance behind here, siren blaring, because she was plugged into her iPod with earphones.

According to AAA’s Digest of State Motor Vehicle Laws, only a few states expressly regulate or prohibit the use or headphones while driving.  In fact, most distracted driving laws specifically exempt “audio,” and using an iPod or a similar device with earphones or headphones to play music, receive language instruction, listen to a book on tape, etc. appears to be perfectly legal. It is my understanding that being hearing-impaired is not a reason that one cannot obtain a driver’s license, and in fact there are programs to help drivers who have biological hearing loss (as opposed to using earphones or headphones) cope with their condition.

But shouldn’t driving with earphones or headphones should be recognized as a dangerous form of distracted driving and treated as such, for teen drivers if not everyone?  First of all, try putting on a good pair of headphones, the type that fit completely over your ears and are designed to block out all other sounds.  They are very effective (and block out far more sound than just the audio system in a car played at high volume).  Next consider how music played at a moderate or high volume further blocks any outside noise.  The problem, of course — like so many things in driving, common sense but just below the surface of our consciousness — is that the ability to hear is an essential part of crash avoidance, and thus driving while plugged in decreases reaction time. I am sure at any experienced driver can recall numerous circumstances were a siren, a crash, a bang, or some other noise was their first alert to a dangerous situation, perhaps even their only key in avoiding a crash. 

My wife and I experienced this recently.  The West Rock Tunnel in New Haven, part of the Merritt Parkway, is about a half mile long, completely straight, and is situated at a part of the highway with a speed limit of more than 50 MPH.  On occasion, traffic backs up inside the tunnel.  On a sunny day, when drivers enter the tunnel at high speed, it takes a moment for eyes to adjust to the darkness.  For this reason, a warning sign a few hundred yards before the tunnel entrance tells drivers to remove their sunglasses before entering the tunnel. On a recent Saturday afternoon, my car was in a long slowdown within the tunnel, almost through it, when far behind me a heard a bang…then another… then two more.  I could not see anything, but the sequence of noises gave a clear signal:  A car entering the tunnel had crashed into the rear of another, which had hit other ones in front of it, starting a chain crash.  The two other drivers on my side and ahead of me all realized at the same moment what was happening, and we sped up to get out of the tunnel and out of the way.  So, in that instant, sound, not anything visual, helped me avoid being hit from behind.

Suppose I had been plugged in at that moment?  I would not have heard the sounds that prompted me to get out of harm’s way.  I don’t have any research on earphones but I am sure this happens regularly on our highways.

For parents of teen drivers, then, this simple, obvious, but important caution:  don’t let you teen drivers wear earphones or headphones while they are driving.  New drivers need every sense available to them to be safe, and purposely blocking off hearing while driving is plainly a bad idea. Reduction or loss of hearing is a form of distracted driving because it reduces reaction time to circumstances that can cause a crash or allow for crash avoidance.  And note that, with regard to this form of distraction, parents do not have state laws to back them up; they are on their own in imposing this limitation.

Teen drivers should be all ears, and parents should make sure they are.