A new study released today by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety indicates that teens are less likely to be injured or killed in car crashes in states where teen driving is regulated by nighttime and passenger restrictions than in states where such laws do not exist.
“Graduated driving laws actually ease new drivers into licensure, allowing them to build their experience behind the wheel before being involved in more risky driving situations,” said Ragina Averella, a AAA mid-Atlantic spokeswoman.
The study, which compared two jurisdictions, Oregon and Ontario, Canada, reported that in areas with teen-driving restrictions, death and injury crash rates were 20 percent lower than in states that lack these safeguards, called graduated driving laws. Oregon has graduated driving laws while Ontario does not.
For its part, Maryland adopted more stringent graduated driving laws in 2005. Its current laws prohibit newly licensed drivers from operating vehicles from midnight until 5 a.m. and from transporting passengers younger than the age of 18, with the exception of family, for the first five months of licensure.
Additionally, Maryland?s laws restrict teens with a learner?s permit or provisional license from using wireless communication devices while driving.
“The bottom line is we hope these laws will not only save teen lives, but lives in general on our highways,” Averella said. “We want to do everything we can to give our teens as much information, knowledge and behind-the- wheel experience as possible.”
Each year for the past five years, an average of 21,399 crashes a year in Maryland have involved young drivers between the ages of 16 and 20, according to date from the Maryland Automated Accident Reporting System database. In Maryland, June is the leading month for car crashes involving teens.
Averella said there statistics are not yet available since the more stringent laws have gone into effect in Maryland
Nationwide, vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for teenagers and government data show that 16-year-olds are involved in more than five times as many fatal crashes per mile as are adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
According to the foundation?s study, nearly half of 16- and 17-year-old drivers involved in fatal car crashes were carrying at least one passenger younger than the age of 21 and had no passengers age 21 or older in the vehicle. More than one-third of deaths of 16- and 17-year-old drivers occur between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
