By Susan A. Baird
PBN Web Editor
ARLINGTON, Va. – States could save lives by delaying the age at which teenagers are allowed to drive, according to a report released today at the annual meeting of the Governors’ Highway Safety Association.
The report, from the Chicago-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), notes that crash death rates among teens 16 and 17 are much lower in New Jersey – the only U.S. state that delays licensure until age 17 – than in nearby Connecticut, where teens can drive a year earlier. “These comparisons don't reflect the benefits of graduated licensing in either state,” the group noted in a statement today, “because the study years, 1992-96, were before graduated systems began to be adopted in New Jersey (2001) or Connecticut (1997).”
The effects of licensing policies in New Jersey and Connecticut also have been compared by the institute in two previous studies, examining crash deaths in 1975 to 1980 and again a decade later. Those analyses estimated Connecticut could achieve a 66-percent reduction in fatal crashes involving 16- and 17-year-old drivers – and a similar reduction in non-fatal accidents – if it raised the minimum age for licensure by a single year.
Graduated licensing systems in most U.S. states already “include permit periods and then limit when and with whom young beginners may drive,” the institute noted. “The result has been to lower the crash rates in state after state.”
Nor is it merely a question of delayed versus graduated licensing, Allan Williams, the new report’s author and a former IIHS chief scientist, stressed in a statement today. “The two policies, licensing later rather than sooner and restricting beginners' driving under graduated licensing, complement each other,” Williams said.
South Dakota’s minimum age of 14-1/2 is the earliest at which any U.S. state permits what the policy group defined as “unsupervised driving” – “in most cases with restrictions on night driving and night driving and passengers but none on where beginners may drive” – but Idaho and Montana were close behind with a driving age of 15, while Mississippi, New Mexico and South Carolina set the threshold at 15-1/2, the IIHS found. Thirty-three U.S. states have a driving age of 16, while the District of Columbia and 10 states – including Rhode Island and Massachusetts – have set minimum ages of 16-1/12 to 16-1/2, the group said.
In Rhode Island, teens must be 16-1/2 or older to apply for a “limited instructional permit” that requires them to be accompanied by a licensed driver who is at least 21; they must be 17-1/2 to apply for a full driver’s license.
Massachusetts also allows earner’s permits at 16-1/2. Recent measures seeking to raise that minimum age to 17 or 18 have failed to clear the state legislature, the IIHS noted in its report.
Teens in most European nations can’t apply for a driver’s license until they reach 18, the policy group noted, while in Great Britain and most of Australia, the minimum age is 17.
“Apart from the effects of age or experience, delaying driver licensure reduces crash rates by reducing the amount young people drive,” said Anne McCartt, the IIHS’ senior vice president for research. In a review of 11 studies since 1990, the policy group found that 16-year-old new drivers have higher crash rates than older teens who also are new drivers.
“This is a tough sell,” she acknowledged in a statement today, “but it’s an important enough issue to challenge the silence and at least consider changing the age at which we allow teenagers to get their licenses to drive. After all, graduated licensing has been successful ever since states began to adopt these programs more than a decade ago, and raising the licensing age is a logical next step to reduce driving by the riskiest motorists on the road: the youngest ones.”
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is a research and public policy organization funded by the automobile industry. Additional information, including vehicle safety ratings and the new data on teen driving, is available at www.iihs.org.
