Shifting Risk Instead of Reducing Risk
Risks of teen driving:
For more than a decade, California and other states have kept their newest teen drivers on a tight leash, restricting the hours when they can get behind the wheel and whom they can bring along as passengers. Public officials were confident that their get-tough policies were saving lives.
Now, though, a nationwide analysis of crash data suggests that the restrictions may have backfired: While the number of fatal crashes among 16- and 17-year-old drivers has fallen, deadly accidents among 18-to-19-year-olds have risen by an almost equal amount. In effect, experts say, the programs that dole out driving privileges in stages, however well-intentioned, have merely shifted the ranks of inexperienced drivers from younger to older teens.
Eric TF Bat • September 21, 2011 7:19 AM
In Australia, the demonising of P-platers (drivers in their first couple of years of driving) is driven almost entirely by the Murdoch press, who seem to like hating on the youngsters because their target market are old, stupid and bitter. P-platers are initially restricted to drive at no more than 80 km/h even in 100 or 110 zones (I’d translate that to mph for you, but come on – it’s the 21st century), which basically means they provide moving barriers on every highway and freeway to increase the chance of accidents. And I’d always suspected that the result was a bunch of drivers who are supposedly trained but who have no idea how to handle cars at higher (legal) speeds, so this article is thoroughly unsurprising.