COLUMBUS – The end of the recession brought on a resurgence of teens getting their driver’s licenses before the age of 18, raising concerns about a potential increase in accidents involving younger drivers.
National Teen Driver Safety Week is October 20-26
A new study from the AAA Foundation, more than 60 percent of teens got their driver’s license before age 18, an 11 percent increase since 2012, when the auto club’s foundation first looked into the issue, AAA Ohio senior community relations manager Kimberly Schwind said.
“At that time, the country was just emerging from a recession and a lot of people said they couldn’t get their license at 16 because their family couldn’t afford the high cost of driving,” Schwind said.
Research suggests parents who set rules cut accident risk in half:
Set a driving curfew. More than 40 percent of teen auto deaths occur between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
The relative risk of a fatal crash increases as the number of passengers increases.
Texting or talking on a cell phone can double the likelihood of an accident.
-Source: Ohio Dept. of Insurance
In its latest survey, Schwind says the auto club found that the most common reason that teens were delaying getting their licenses were nervousness and because they don’t really need a license before age 18.
The survey also found that 70 percent of teens living in the Midwest tend to be licensed at younger ages, compared with 66 percent nationwide, and while only half of teens in large cities obtained their license before age 18, with nearly two-thirds of those living in less urbanized areas getting theirs at earlier ages, Schwind said.
Ohio has not kept pace with the trends involving younger drivers and, as a result, Schwind says the rates of crashes involving younger drivers in Ohio remain high. Nearly 38,000 injuries and fatalities occurred in Ohio teen driver crashes during the past five years, Schwind said, citing data from the Ohio Department of Transportation.
The auto club is supporting legislation that would give teens a full year of experience with a learner’s permit before they get their license, six months longer that at present, and would require newly licensed teen drivers to be supervised by an adult while driving after 10:00 p.m. for the first six months after licensure. Current nighttime driving protections start at midnight.