Teen driving deaths such as those that have plagued Washington area roadways this fall could be prevented by state laws that prohibit young drivers from carrying passengers and require them to spend more hours practicing on the road with an adult, an auto safety advocacy group said yesterday.
In a news conference in the District, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety urged state legislatures to reduce auto fatalities with new laws on youth driving, drunken driving, helmets, booster seats and seat belts. Teen driving laws in particular are lean in the region and across the country, said Judith Lee Stone, the group's president.
Veronica Betancourt, whose sister, Alicia, 16, was killed in a Montgomery crash, urged lawmakers to change driving laws.
(Preston Keres -- The Washington Post)
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Teen Driving: Advocates recommend a four-stage, graduated licensing program.
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Accident Victims: The number of young people killed in traffic accidents has surged in recent weeks.
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"Teens are dying in communities all over the country," she said. "Most involve inexperience, speed, alcohol and late-night driving."
Nationwide, more than 6,000 teens die in motor vehicle crashes each year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Washington area has had a spate of youth driving fatalities recently, with 17 dead since September, the beginning of the school year.
Among them was Alicia Betancourt, 16, a junior at James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring. She died as a passenger in a friend's car in September.
Her sister Veronica, a junior at Swarthmore College, joined the panel of safety advocates yesterday.
"I am here to be a face of the tens of thousands of people who have lost a family member or a loved one," she said. Her little sister, the artistic member of the family, the girl she used to protect from spiders, is "now in a casket 10 minutes from my house," she said.
She continued: "Amidst the confusion of grief, one thing stands clear for me: Driving laws must protect teenagers."
In Virginia and the District, a young person seeking a driver's license must drive safely with supervision for six months after getting a learner's permit. Both jurisdictions also place limits on who can ride with an inexperienced driver and require new drivers to ride for at least 30 hours with an adult.
The safety advocacy group suggested measures to also limit teens' driving hours or require supervised practice after dark.
Maryland has no law limiting the number or age of passengers who can ride in a car driven by an inexperienced driver.
Various state lawmakers have sponsored legislation to limit passengers in cars driven by teenagers in past General Assembly session and will try again in the session that begins Jan. 12.
The advocacy group also outlined recommendations to prevent some of the nearly 43,000 auto fatalities and 3 million injuries in the United States each year.
These suggestions include requiring booster seats for children ages 4 to 8, making motorcycle helmets mandatory in the 30 states where they are not and imposing stricter penalties on people who do not wear seat belts.
Last night in Bethesda, about 300 parents and teenagers attended a forum on teen driving at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Ten Montgomery County teenagers have died in traffic accidents this school year.
A panel, which included representatives from Chrysler Corp., the National Transportation Safety Board, the National Safety Council, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and AAA, heard Del. Adrienne A. Mandel (D-Montgomery) discuss efforts to strengthen teen driving laws, in particular to prohibit new drivers from carrying passengers besides immediate family members during their first six months with a provisional license.
Mandel joined the other panelists in putting the onus on parents to monitor their children's driving.
Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, called graduated licensing programs, in which teens receive their licenses over several stages, a "legislative priority" for the group.
"We do have good teenage driving laws in Maryland, Virginia and D.C., but the last few bloody weeks in our region have to be a very tragic reminder that putting good laws on the books is not enough," he said.
