It’s time to complete the job on Ohio’s GDL law

Editorial from December issue of The Ohio Motorist

Although this might be wishful thinking, passing the proposed new bill that deals with teen driving safety should be a simple process in the Ohio General Assembly. This legislation, described in our Page One story, basically corrects an oversight that occurred in the rush to get a graduated licensing law passed eight years ago by Ohio legislators. That was landmark legislation, a great bill that saved an estimated 30 lives from its 1998 launch to 2001, according to an Ohio Department of Public Safety report. Ohio’s graduated licensing law expanded training for young drivers by requiring them to drive 50 hours with a parent plus attend driving school. Nationally, fatal crash involvement based on the population of 16-year-old drivers has fallen 26 percent since the adoption of GDL laws began in 1993, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. In reports elsewhere on GDL benefits, teenagers licensed under GDL were found to have 23 percent fewer crashes than those who were not.

But now it’s time to catch up to other states that have enacted improvements.

A new bill to limit the number of passengers riding with a novice driver in Ohio, sponsored by Rep. Tom Raga, R-Mason, is waiting in the wings in the State House in Columbus. It would prohibit a probationary driver from operating a vehicle with more than one passenger who is not a family member. The bill also would raise the age at which a person can obtain a temporary instruction permit from the present age of 15 ½ to 16.
Ohio’s original graduated driver licensing law sans passenger restrictions was passed on Dec. 1, 1997. But now with the majority of states already enforcing passenger limits for novice teen drivers in their graduated licensing programs, Ohio and 13 others are still lagging.

Statistics such as those published in the Journal of the American Medical Association March 22, 2000 show the high price that’s being paid for not addressing the passenger issue.

The study found that 16-year-old drivers carrying one passenger increased their chances of being killed by 39 percent over the risk incurred in driving alone. With two passengers, the chances of being fatally injured rose 86 percent. With more than two passengers, the risk rose by 182 percent. The study found that the risk was even higher for 17-year-olds.
Teen drivers have the highest crash risk of any age group, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Immaturity and inexperience give teens the highest involvement rates in all types of crashes from property damage to fatalities. GDL legislation has stretched out the learning process and established safeguards like curfew hours and traffic-offense and alcohol-offense restrictions.

AAA believes that this enhancement of Ohio’s GDL will prove to be a significant improvement on what has been accomplished so far. There’s no doubt about AAA members’ feelings: Ninety percent of members who voted in the Opinion Poll conducted in the July 2004 issue of The Ohio Motorist said “Yes” in response to the statement: “Ohio should establish a limit on teen passengers in vehicles driven by a novice passenger.”
As a matter of fact, readers in the same poll said they were in favor of raising the licensing age to 18 in Ohio, by a 70-30 percent margin. As it is written, Raga’s proposed legislation would delay fully privileged licensing to 18, since the restrictions written into the law would go up to age 18 from the present 17.

In the statewide 2004 AAA Public Affairs survey, 83 percent of participants favored a limit on non-family teenage passengers. The largest segment, 40 percent of those replying, supported a ban on more than a single passenger.

Turning this bill into law will save lives and spare families the pain that too many have suffered already. The goal is: safer kids, safer roads. 

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