Teen Driver Safety Coalition Urges Passage of New Teen Driving Law
23 March 1999
Teen Driver Safety Coalition Urges Passage of New Teen Driving Law; New Poll Shows Texans Favor Graduated Licensing for Teens
AUSTIN, Texas--March 22, 1999--A coalition of safety, educational and health groups today called on the Texas Legislature to create a new Graduated Driver Licensing System for novice teenage drivers to help save lives."Automobile accidents are the Number One cause of death for Texas teens. We believe a graduated driver licensing system in Texas will help to assure that the next time a teenager gets behind a wheel won't be his or her last," said Bill Noble, group manager for Public Affairs for AAA Texas. "Put simply, graduated licensing will allow Texas teens to gain greater driving experience in supervised and lower-risk driving situations, which will result in fewer crashes."
Sen. Teel Bivins of Amarillo and Sen. Royce West of Dallas have introduced Senate Bill 280, which would introduce graduated driver licensing to Texas. The bill is scheduled to be considered in the Senate Criminal Justice Committee on March 24.
Senator Bivins said, "I believe this graduated drivers' license bill is good public policy in that it creates the right incentives for new drivers to think a little more about safety in an effort to finally acquire what teenagers want most -- an unrestricted drivers license."
Senator West said, "The bill is designed to eliminate the high risk factors that contribute to teen traffic accidents and fatalities. It is not intended to be punitive, rather it is intended to save lives."
The Bivins-West bill would create a new licensing system that enables teenage drivers to gain behind-the-wheel experience in progressively more difficult driving situations. For instance, newly licensed teenage drivers initially would be restricted from unsupervised late-night driving between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. for at least six-months, except for trips related to employment. Statistics show that late-night hours are disproportionately deadly for teens.
The legislation also mandates a six-month period free of at-fault collisions and traffic convictions before full, independent driving privileges are granted. Teenage drivers are given the incentive to drive responsibly knowing they need a clean record to gain full licenses.
The coalition released the results of a new poll that shows a large majority of Texans support graduated driver licensing for new teen drivers.
The results show that 73 percent of Texans favor a mandatory Graduated Driver Licensing System for new teenage drivers, prior to a teen obtaining a full, unrestricted license. 21 percent were opposed. When those polled were given more information on teenage driver crashes, support for the program increased to 80 percent and opposition dropped to 16 percent. When asked if they favor restricting late-night driving by first-year teenage drivers unless they are accompanied by a licensed parent or other designated adult, the poll showed 79 percent favored and 19 percent opposed. Texans also favored requiring teen drivers to drive without at-fault crashes and traffic convictions for one year before they become eligible for a full, unrestricted license: 71 percent favored this element of graduated licensing, 26 percent were opposed.
Research shows that graduated licensing saves lives. Florida saw fatal and injury crash rates for new drivers fall 9 percent during the first year a new graduated licensing law went into effect. Over twenty-four states already have some form of graduated licensing.
The poll, commissioned by AAA Texas, was conducted by Baselice and Associates Inc. on March 3-7, 1999, and polled 608 randomly selected voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.1 percent.
Coalition members include the AAA Texas, Children's Hospital Association of Texas, Greater Dallas Injury Prevention Center, Texas Office of MADD, Texas Medical Association, Texas Congress of Parents and Teachers and The Century Council. The sole focus of the coalition is to secure changes to Texas driver licensing laws in order to reduce teenage driver motor vehicle crashes.