This past weekend I attended the Lifesavers Conference, the annual meeting of the national traffic safety community. My next few posts will report on a variety of things I learned there (in Denver, in the snow).
There have been some studies and reports about teens delaying getting licensed until age 18, to avoid the restrictions and requirements of Graduated Driver Licensing laws, and some evidence of crash rates for 18 and 19 year olds going up as a result. A session led by Bruce Hamilton of the AAA Foundation and Scott Masten of the California DMV shed some light on this topic.
In summary, the current research, which admittedly is not comprehensive or definitive but indicative, shows the following: First, in states with the strictest GDL systems, there is some evidence that if teens do not become licensed at 16, they wait until they are 18 or older. This was evident in Scott Masten’s data for California, which has a relatively strict GDL system; the data showed a large number of 16 year olds obtaining their licenses, but then a marked drop off among 17 year olds, followed by a surge among the 18 year olds. Second, an important safety issue: crash rates for 18 and 19 year olds who got their licenses without going thorough the GDL restrictions for drivers under 18 had higher crash rates for the first 36 months of licensing that younger drivers who had been through the GDL restrictions. The important take-away from this (again, data from one state only) is that one of the key benefits of GDL is that the prohibitions and restrictions on new drivers that GDL imposes allow them to get on-the-road experience in less dangerous situations — with passengers, night driving, etc. — before moving on to an unrestricted license. This information, if documented in more states, would seem to be a powerful argument for extending GDL restrictions to 18 and 19 year olds at least.
The third point from Bruce and Scott’s presentations was that this phenomenon of teens delaying licensing is a relative non-issue in states with lenient GDL systems. In other words, if state law allow teens to obtain a learner’s permit at age 14 or 15 (as 39 states do) and a license with few restrictions at 16, waiting until age 18 is much less of an issue. In these states, delaying licensing to age 18 or 19 or later is an issue of finances, location, or family situation. Teens who can’t afford to drive don’t do so until they have a job/income; teens in urban areas have less need for cars; and sometimes a family’s situation or a teen’s physical and mental development simply dictate that they are not ready to drive.
