The Day Editorial Board has made a discussion on the dangers of teen driving one of its priorities for 2008. Today's Perspective cover is dedicated to the topic. And last Monday the newspaper, in conjunction with the Governor's Task Force on Teen Driving, hosted a forum at Stonington High School.
Acting on the task force recommendations, the legislature is considering lengthening the time that teen drivers have a restricted license prohibiting them from having friends as passengers. Proposed new laws also would provide stiffer penalties, including license suspensions, for violating driving laws and would require more driver training, among other things.
But no one should be under any illusion — and I believe few are — that any law, short of a prohibition, can assure safe teen driving.
When a son or daughter drives off for the first time, or climbs in as a passenger with a teen driver, it is as if his or her name has been attached to a giant wheel of misfortune. The wheel is eventually going to stop on some young driver's or passenger's name. It's inevitable. Kids die in crashes. You just hope it's not your kid.
Society must do all it can to reduce the number of teen accidents. Parents have to repeatedly reinforce to their kids the dangers inherent in driving and insist on strict adherence to driving laws. But many teens will still drive too fast, still party, still act recklessly.
Teen brains are not fully developed. They do not have the same sense of danger adults have. Inexperienced, they often misjudge speed and the ability to control a vehicle.
Licenses equate to freedom, and no longer needing mom or dad to get from here to there. It is the chance to go where they want to go, do what they want to do. What many do is terrifying.
And teens get plenty of mixed messages.
On the football field, fans and coaches laud the quality of acting fearlessly, the willingness to throw one's testosterone-pumping body into the fray. But the same young man is expected to transform into a cautious, careful driver behind the wheel.
Beer and liquor commercials bombard young people with the message that getting cocked is cool, never mind that barely whispered admonition to “drink responsibly.”
NASCAR and car commercials sensationalize speed and power, as do movies. Fastest is cool. Fastest gets the girl.
I'm two for two — two teen drivers, two significant crashes.
Six years ago my oldest son crashed while speeding, literally, over to a friend's house on a sunny Saturday morning. He was navigating one of those narrow, twisting roads that criss-cross our region. He had things under control, he thought, until he came around a bend to see a car backing into his lane.
He tried to navigate around, but was going too fast and lost control, flipping his car. He called me from the crash scene on a cell phone, frightened and in pain. But he got off relatively lucky — cracked ribs and a punctured lung, and no one else hurt.
“The call” from my second-oldest, then-newly-licensed son, came four years ago after he had rear ended a truck on Interstate 395. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries.
My youngest son is 15. Soon the process will begin again. So, too, will the worries.
It's the deal we strike for being a car-centric society. We do what we can, then brace for the spin of the wheel.