What Would We Do Without Reports?

Report: Teen Drivers Pose Broad Risk

Every state has some form of a graduated licensing program but they vary in their scope. Darbelnet said the foundation considers a comprehensive program to include at least 50 hours of supervised driving with an adult, restrictions of the time of day when a beginning driver can use a vehicle and limits on the number of passengers in the vehicle without a supervising adult.

Safety groups say distractions and risks grow sharply for teen drivers at night and when they travel with their friends.

"Regardless of what the state law says, parents should not allow their teen to ride with other teen drivers, nor should they be allowed to transport other teens in the first year of driving," Darbelnet said.

(Emphasis added.) Well, duh.

My father taught me how to drive when I was 10 or 11. We had a hunting lease on a ranch in the Texas Hill Country and to get around on it, he bought an old VW Beetle, took off the body, and added a roll-bar and a plywood platform in the back, plus oversized tires and floodlights. Dad reckoned that if we were out at the back of beyond and something happened to him, I needed to know how to get us back to civilization. And thus was born my fondness for stick shift.

By the time I took driver's ed, I had the mechanics down pat and only needed to get used to driving with more around me than rocks, trees and cattle. For the road-work part of the course, they put three student drivers and an instructor in a car to tool around the city. I was linked up with a pair of knuckle-dragging morons who nearly killed us all on a regular basis. The instructor would have them go first and save the final leg of the trip for me so that he could unclench and relax a little.

As I recollect, when I first got my license, I was pretty much restricted to driving to school and back and sometimes to the store. Only gradually did I work my way up to night driving and longer trips. This is only common sense.