Safety first pushed for teen drivers

Every Mainer with a teenage child should be able to relate to the somber little gathering of parents this week on Mount Desert Island.

Drawn together by the recent loss of a 16-year-old local youth in a car accident, about 50 concerned parents met in Bar Harbor on Thursday to talk about what they could do to make their teens safer while driving on the island’s roads, where 22 people have died in 4,000 crashes since 1989.

The group discussed the need for parents to be more vigilant about knowing where their kids are going in cars, who their passengers will be and how many and who will be doing the driving. They talked of the obligation of parents to better control the use of family vehicles, and even the possibility of putting stickers on their cars to alert the rest of the population that there’s a new driver behind the wheel who bears watching.

They also talked at length about the well-intentioned, though probably unworkable, notion of beefing up public transportation on the island as a way of getting local kids out of their cars and onto buses. The truth is, however, that your average American teen-ager has a genetically coded aversion to buses. To most of them, MDI kids included, a bus is a “loser cruiser” that should be avoided at all costs.

While there never will be a set of strategies that can remove all the risks associated with teens and cars, said Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky, the small gathering in MDI represents one highly effective tool in helping to reduce at least some of the perils facing rookie drivers: parental involvement, and the more the better.

“We’ve come a long way in the last few years with new laws that can make driving safer for teenagers,” he said, “but the critical piece in those efforts is the participation of parents, schools and communities.”

Gwadosky was one of the lead architects of Maine’s bold, three-tiered graduated licensing system that was enacted recently by the Legislature. Under the new law, drivers who have completed a six-month learning-permit period (it used to be three) are allowed to take a road test to earn an intermediate license.

For the next six months, before they can get an unrestricted license, new drivers are not allowed to carry passengers other than adults and family members. They can’t use cell phones while driving, either, and are prohibited from driving between midnight and 5 a.m.

Any violations of the rules during those six months will result in a mandatory 30-day license suspension and will force the young offender to begin the intermediate stage all over again.

“We think of this new graduated system as a great start, and one that addresses a lot of concerns of parents,” Gwadosky said. “But the parents’ role is critical to the process. Getting a license should not mean the end of the family’s obligation, but the beginning.”

Gwadosky said a parent’s duties should start long before the child is ready to begin the licensing process. A parent who drives like a madman – speeding at every opportunity, tailgating, passing cars recklessly, not wearing a seat belt – should not be surprised when his kid becomes a 16-year-old driver who pulls the same knuckleheaded stunts.

“Parents also should know who their children are driving with,” he said. “They might want to limit their children’s driving during high-risk times and limit the number of friends they can have in the car at one time.”

Gwadosky also urged parents to sign the contract – most driving schools pass them out at graduation – that makes them promise they will pick up their children anywhere, at any time, and without question, if their children call to say they’ve been drinking or feel that their ride home might be unsafe. Then be sure to honor the contract, he said, regardless of how inconvenient it might seem when you’re half-asleep on the couch at 1 a.m.

And while the state allows youngsters to get their licenses at 16, he said, parents have every right to set their own timetables for their children’s driving privileges.

“You can decide that your kids have to drive on a learner’s permit for a year, instead of just six months as the law requires,” said Gwadosky, who imposed just such a restriction on his own two teenage motorists. “That way they can get a feel for driving in every kind of weather, and not just when the roads are dry.”

In other words, he suggested to parents, don’t be too quick to trade your child’s safety for the family’s convenience.

“There’s so much pressure these days to have that second or third car in the family,” Gwadosky said, “so that parents can finally relieve themselves of their transportation obligations.

But parents who stay involved with their teenagers can have a dramatic impact on how well our new laws work. Your involvement can’t just stop once your kid has a license.”