Graduated Licensing Systems

Licensing a new driver comes with a great risk. New drivers have elevated crash levels compared to other drivers on the road. Drivers younger than eighteen are three times as likely to be involved in a traffic accident as compared to adults. Young drivers pose a risk to other drivers because they lack judgment that comes with experience and skill.

Several states have enacted graduated licensing systems to help reduce the risk of auto accidents among teen drivers. A graduated licensing system is designed to delay full licensure while allowing beginners to obtain their initial experience under lower risk conditions.

The graduated licensing system involves three stages: a minimum supervised learner’s period, an intermediate license that limits unsupervised driving in high-risk situations and a full-privilege driver’s license available after completion of the first two stages. A beginner must remain in each of the first two stages for a set amount of time. This can range anywhere from time spent on the road to a specified amount of time like three months. Currently forty seven states have all three stages, but they vary from state to state.

Teens need to practice safe driving.

The minimum age for a learner’s permit is sixteen and the learner stage usually lasts about six months. During this six month time period, parents must certify thirty to fifty hours of supervised driving. The intermediate stage will last until age eighteen and includes a night driving restriction starting at nine or ten p.m. and a strict teenage passenger restriction allowing no teenage passengers or no more than one teenage passenger.

Many states began moving toward graduating licensing systems during the 1990s. Again, the program varies from state to state. The law enforcement is also different in each state, while larger states have more police officers to help enact the law; they may have a larger population and cannot sufficiently keep up with the number of teen drivers on the road.

Other states prohibit police officers from stopping young drivers solely for night driving violations or passenger restrictions. The graduated licensing system was designed using criteria to estimate the strength and effectiveness of the systems to reduce injuries. The graduated licensing systems are graded on a point system.

Good systems scored six or more points, fair systems scored four or five points, marginal systems scored two or three points and poor systems scored less than two points. So far, no state has scored above marginal.

With any law, there are advantages and disadvantages. The advantages to a graduated licensing system are as follows:

· Young people need time to develop the necessary driving skills and judgments to counteract their lack of on the road experience.

· Teen crash statistics prove that something needs to be done to protect the teens and everyone who shares the road with them.

· Florida instituted a graduated driving system for drivers 18 and under and the first full year showed a nine percent reduction in fatal and injury crash involvement among fifteen to seventeen year olds.

The disadvantages to a graduated licensing system include:

· Lack of freedom for teens to be involved in schools and communities.

· A greater burden is placed on the parents of these teens as they need to be their chauffeurs.

· It is costly to implement a graduated licensing program because it involves greater state regulation. The state regulation will require more police officers and a greater involvement in schools.

· Additional costs to schools to hire qualified teachers.

No matter if you agree or disagree with graduated licensing programs, you have to admit something needs to be done to inform teen drivers about the risks associated with driving.