There are few rites of passage that hold more allure for teens than getting a driver’s license.
It’s a ticket to freedom, a credential of cool, and, as we’ve come to realize over the years, a very dangerous privilege that can all too easily end in tragedy.
So it was with some sense of relief that we took note of recent trends in Colorado, and the nation as a whole, that show fewer teenagers are getting driver’s licenses.
They’re putting off getting a license until their 20s or later in their teen years, a decision guided by a variety of factors.
High on the list is the cost of auto insurance, which is significant, and shoots through the roof if a teen gets a traffic ticket or has an accident.
But it’s also attributable to Colorado’s graduated license program, approved in 1999. The plan requires teenagers to go through three stages: obtaining an instructional permit, then a minor’s license, then a full driver’s license.
The changes took on a sense of urgency in the fall of 1998 when four Greeley teenagers died in a car accident just hours after the 16-year-old driver of the car had received his license.
It was a shocking tragedy. The driver, Mike Preston, was tooling around with three friends when he ran a stop sign and collided with a tractor trailer.
Families of the dead teenagers were on hand in 1999 when Gov. Bill Owens signed the graduated license bill into law.
Along with the law change, it seems that parents are exerting some influence in holding back their children. Certainly, the expense of insurance and formal driver’s instruction courses, required at younger ages, are at work. But it seems to us that parents are increasingly realizing just how hostile the roads can be.
With the decrease in driver’s licenses issued to teenagers has come a sharp drop in automobile fatalities among 16- to 20-year-olds.
But there still are issues to be concerned about. Teens still have a disturbing propensity to refuse to buckle up. Last year, 43 teen drivers and passengers were killed in crashes. A full 63 percent of them weren’t wearing seat belts.
So, while it seems that young people and their parents are making more astute choices about when teenagers should get behind the wheel, there still is room for improvement.
