Laws that have saved teen drivers' lives

The 16th birthday is a milestone in the life of a child and his or her parents.

It is a time of transition from child toward young adult, when teens can be expected to assume more responsibility reflective of a higher level of maturity.

Such as being trusted to drive a car.

Yet you have to wonder how ready they are for this, given the grim facts about teen driving. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in the 15- to 20-year-old age group. Nearly one in five of all fatal crashes involves teen drivers.

So what do you do in response to these alarming statistics? You can stop teens from driving, making them wait until they are a little older before qualifying for a license. But that is neither practical - many teens need a car to get to a job - nor realistic in a society that is accustomed to 16 as the legal driving age.

The best plan is to make sure teens get the very best driver training, to reduce the risks associated with teen driving, and to make teens prove, step by step, that they can handle the responsibility of driving while also showing them little mercy when they make serious mistakes on the road.

That is the approach the state of Illinois has taken through the years. It has a graduated licensing system that phases in full driving privileges for teen drivers. The state also restricts when teens can drive and requires more teaching time behind the wheel.

All of this is working as intended. Teens are better drivers. And lives are being saved.

In 2002, 190 Illinois teens died in crashes. But in the first half of this year, there have been 39 teen driving fatalities compared with 82 deaths for the same period in 2007, according to The Associated Press. That is a 52 percent decline in teen deaths on the roads.

You have to credit much of this to the campaign to change the laws on teen driving.

Now, teens must earn and learn their way from one stage of driving to the next. They are on a learner's permit for a longer period and are required to have many more hours of instructional driving, both with parents and driver ed teachers. They cannot drive with a car full of passengers during the first year of their license, and there are limits on cell phone use while driving, in order to reduce distractions. Driving privileges can be suspended with two moving violations and are immediately taken away if a teen is found to have consumed any amount of alcohol while driving.

Teens grumble about the heavy-handedness of such laws. And given they've shown they are meeting the expectations of these laws by driving safer, perhaps it's time to hold off on new teen driving regulations.

But one area in which the legislature and governors past and present deserve much praise for intelligent and cooperative work is in how they have saved the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of our youngest drivers.