As Maine goes, so should the nation

The phrase “As Maine goes, so goes the nation” lost much of its validity on Election Day 1936, when we were one of only two states to choose Republican Alf Landon over Franklin D. Roosevelt.

But when it comes to enacting legislation that removes at least one big distraction from the hands of our youngest and most inexperienced drivers, Maine has set a wise example that an increasing number of states are finally catching on to.

When the year began, according to a recent Associated Press story, only Maine and New Jersey had laws that limited cell phone use for new teen drivers. In Maine, that restriction came about in 2003 as part of the state’s three-tiered graduated license system. New drivers who have completed a six-month learning permit period under adult supervision are allowed to take a road test to earn an intermediate license.

For the next six months, before they can be granted an unrestricted license, drivers are prohibited from carrying passengers other than adults and family members. They’re not allowed to drive between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m., and are banned from using cell phones – hand-held or hands-free – while operating a vehicle.

Now, it seems, other states are beginning to recognize the value of such a pioneering, take-it-slow approach that gives new drivers time to concentrate more on acquiring the skills necessary for safe driving and less on distracting and unnecessary telephone conversations while barreling down the highway.

As this year’s legislative sessions have progressed nationwide, lawmakers in six states have passed bills to ban all forms of cell phones for teen drivers with learning permits or provisional licenses. At least 12 more states have considered similar measures in recent months. While those initial efforts were not successful, advocates have vowed to bring the issue back before their legislatures.

Lawmakers and safety officials elsewhere, the story said, are beginning to take seriously the reports about distracted driving and youthful inexperience that Maine officials chose to heed two years ago.

Even when they aren’t using cell phones, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, teenagers are much more likely than older, more experienced drivers to get into accidents. At age 16, boys are involved in 27 car crashes per million miles driven. For girls, it’s 28. For both sexes, the crash rates drop significantly as drivers age. By the time drivers reach the 20- to 24-year-old category, there are only eight crashes per million miles driven for males and nine for females. The insurance institute’s statistics show that 32 16-year-olds died per 100,000 drivers in 2003, which is four times higher than the death rate among drivers from 30 to 59 years of age.

Researchers cite abundant distractions in the car and the lack of experience to overcome them as the primary factors that make the nation’s youngest drivers so vulnerable. A study conducted at the University of Utah last year, using simulated driving conditions, showed that when 18- to 25-year-olds talked on cell phones their reaction times to brake lights of cars in front of them slowed to that of drivers 65 to 74 years of age who were not on phones.

No, restricting phone use until drivers get some miles under their belts is not a silver bullet solution, as one Maryland legislator pointed out in the story, “but it’s one piece of a puzzle we need to put in place if we’re serious about eliminating highway deaths, highway crashes, as the No. 1 cause of death among young Americans.”

Isn’t it nice to know Maine was a national leader in something other than our tax rate?