Feb. 16--HARTFORD -- Members of the state's teenage driving panel said Friday they're tired of TV commercials that glorify excessive speed and recklessness for impressionable young drivers.

But the Governor's Task Force on Teen Driving admitted there's little it can do other than counteract the commercial onslaught with increased statewide education on potential dangers that come with the freedom to drive.

Meeting in the Legislative Office Building to develop recommendations for enhancing driver training, task force members led by Chief Judge Albert S. Dabrowski, of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, said TV auto ads send the wrong message.

"We're confronted with ads," Dabrowski said. "Zoom, zoom, zoom. I find it particularly disturbing and I personally believe that our automobile companies are irresponsible with regard to these ads."

Jim MacPherson, a spokesman for the AAA Motor Club of Connecticut, said ads and movies make a big impact on young teens.

"All sorts of entertainment that goes well beyond advertisements very much comes to bear in what they hope to replicate once they get their licenses," MacPherson told the committee.

In reality, the driving tricks are accomplished by professional stunt drivers and film crews that often take a whole day to record one minute of action.

"For teens to think that they can go out and replicate these feats -- and many of them do -- for teens to think that this is possible I think is a tragic misunderstanding of what does occur," said MacPherson, the author of two safe-driving books.

J. Robert Galvin, commissioner of the State Department of Public Health and co-chairman of the task force, said that we live in a society that encourages bad vehicular behavior.

"We're in a culture where people want pretty cars that go very fast," he said.

Some panel members wondered if they could recommend legislation that would limit young drivers to lower-powered vehicles in an attempt to avoid crashes such as the high-speed collision this week that killed two Milford high school students and left another teen in critical condition.

A vehicle's relative age and price has little to do with power, MacPherson said, noting the tragic collisions over the last six months or so that killed at least eight young people.

"These were, in fact, affordable motor vehicles that had very low weight-to-horsepower ratios and were put in the hands of individuals, who in my opinion -- and I think we can justify that opinion based on the consequences of the events -- were inadequately trained and did not have the background to control it," MacPherson said. "One way to avoid that is simply to say that people who do not have the experience that is deemed to be necessary to control this kind of vehicle shouldn't drive them," he said.

Another panel member, Maria Cruz, of Big A Driving School, told about the difference between the sexes when it comes to driving.

"The girls want something cute to drive and the boys want something powerful," she said. "I think we should look at some kind of legislation limiting the horsepower."

Another panelist, Dr. Brendan Campbell, of the Connecticut Children's Medical Center, said that the issue was interesting, but taking them away from the goal coming up with final recommendations in May.

"What I think is critically important is we keep our eye on the ball and what is proven to work to help reduce teenage car crashes and teenage deaths," he said. "And the graduated driver's license has proven that."

The task force last month unanimously approved short-term recommendations, including mandatory suspensions for teens who break motor vehicle laws.

The General Assembly's Transportation Committee has scheduled a public hearing for Wednesday to hear comment on numerous teen-driving proposals.