The Teen Driving Debate

April 30, 2008

Its pretty rare that something happening in government can actually get the attention of high school students. Yet a bill has just been passed in the Michigan Senate trying to limit the number of passengers for first year drivers (it has yet to be passed by the State House). Specifically, it is proposed that only one non-relative be allowed in the car of a teen driver.

This is one of those rare occasions where students really pay attention.

In a high school full of teenage drivers, it is next to impossible to find someone who supports this bill. While a few of the students I surveyed did answer “I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can see where they are coming from,” an overwhelming majority simply replied “it’s stupid!” In fact, all but one of the 20 students I personally surveyed said that they disagreed with the bill.

Obviously, as a teenage driver myself, I don't like this bill at all. However, I am also one of those people that understand why the state would want to restrict passengers. Research has shown that the risk of accidents increases exponentially with each passenger. That's just common sense. The more friends a teen has in their car, the less they are paying attention to the road. And the less they are paying attention, the more likely they will get into an accident.

I’ve also had some first-hand experience with the dangers of teens driving with a full car. A few weeks ago, my father was driving our family home when we were t-boned at 50 mph. We were turning left on a green arrow when a car blew a red light. It turned out that this other car was driven by a high school girl (not from Novi) with three of her friends riding along. I could see them just before they hit us - they were laughing about something and just plain blew the red light.

Before that experience, I thought that adults were just blowing smoke when they said that each passenger increased the risk of an accident exponentially, especially with teenagers. Yet while most of the time most teenagers are good drivers, things are different when there are friends in the car.

Yet this bill isn’t all a good thing. It could seriously hurt our high school sports, not to mention students’ wallets. For our cross country team, we rely on drivers a lot. For our daily practices, we drive to various courses, trails, dirt roads, and parks to run, because running on sidewalks near the school every day causes us injuries. To continue training properly, we need to carpool.

With this bill, we would only be able to drive one person each, leaving us stuck near campus to run. That could ruin our team's chances for victory! Of course, some other teams would probably be in a similar situation, because I know we aren’t the only team that carpools to practices.

Finally, this would cost students (and maybe their parents money and waste gas. For example, if five friends want to go see a movie they need only one car today. But, if this bill is passed they would need three cars. That’s three times as much gas used, three times as much money spent, and three times more teen drivers on the road! Plus, that’s not exactly helping the environment.

It’s pretty hard to argue that restricting the number of passengers teens can drive won’t reduce the number of car accidents. Yet what the real debate is about is simple: does the increased safety outweigh the extra inconvenience and cost?

Our high schoolers say no.