Last week, I was driving with my 14-year-old son and his 15-year-old friend in the car. My son criticized me for not turning left out of parking lot when, according to he-who-has-never-driven, I had “plenty of time” to do so. His friend, who recently got his learner’s permit, piped up and said, “Driving is not as easy as it looks.” You can say that again, friend. This is National Teen Driver Safety Week, and it is a good time to consider how to keep teenagers safe when they or their inexperienced friends are behind the wheel. Nationally, fatalities involving drivers between ages 15 and 20 increased by 9.7 percent in 2015—a rate that exceeded the 7.2 increase for all vehicle crash fatalities that year. Deaths among this group of young drivers did not increase so dramatically in North Carolina. In 2015, 165 drivers ages 15 to 20 were killed in vehicle crashes in North Carolina, compared to 162 the previous year—an increase of 2 percent. Yet no amount of increase in traffic deaths is welcome. Thus, researchers, policy-makers, parents, and others continue to search for ways to reverse the trend. Graduating licensing is a good start. North Carolina was one of the first states to adopt graduated licensing for 16-year-olds, adopting a three-stage licensing system in 1997. Under a graduated system, driving privileges are granted in stages. As new teenage drivers gain experience, they are permitted to drive at additional times and with fewer restrictions, provided they are not convicted of [...]
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