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CNN Live At Daybreak

States Setting Teen Driver Restrictions

Aired June 20, 2001 - 08:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with news about your family and troubles down the road. The American Automobile Association says that teen safety may depend on how many people are along for the ride.

As Kathleen Koch reports, this is one case where more may not be merrier.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Music, conversation, a car full of friends: It can be a lethal combination for easily distracted teens already at high risk for fatal crashes.

ALLAN WILLIAMS, INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY: When you start adding passengers to the mix, you increase that risk to four or five times what it is when driving alone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, my dad says, "Go ahead. So go for it." Great.

KOCH: So some novice drivers are learning the rules of the road now include limits on passengers. Virginia this summer joins 15 states and the District of Columbia in having such laws. The restrictions vary. Some states say no passengers under 21; others say no more than three for the first 90 days to a year of driving.

CLYDE PELZER, PARENT: If they say, "Well, Dad, can you drop us off at such and such?" I don't have a problem with that because I know they're going to get there.

BOB BECK, PARENT: If you put three or four of his friends in the car, who knows what's going to happen? So, from our standpoint, it's a -- it's a pretty good idea.

KOCH: Virginia teens say they'll adapt, though they doubt it will change behavior.

BRAD BECK, NOVICE DRIVER: If you're going to do something wrong, you're going to do it with people in a car and without people in a car.

BECKY WALTERS, ACCIDENT VICTIM: Here's the tire tracks. And they go up there across the road. KOCH: Fifteen-year-old Becky Walters is one of six Columbia, Maryland teens injured in early March when police say the novice driver of the car lost control while speeding down this residential road. Maryland has no limits on teen passengers. And Walters herself is skeptical they would work.

WALTERS: It's like, if you make a law, they're not going to listen to it anyways.

KOCH: Nancy Wisthoff, whose 16-year-old son was seriously injured in the same accident, is more hopeful.

NANCY WISTHOFF, PARENT OF ACCIDENT VICTIM: Had that law been in effect, they might still have done it. But they might not have. Maybe they would have thought twice.

KOCH: That's what Virginia officials would like to see happen when their law takes effect July 1.

(on camera): Experts, though, admit that it's generally up to parents or teens themselves to enforce such passenger limits, so police have few statistics on violations, making it hard to measure the law's actual impact.

Kathleen Koch, for CNN, Arlington, Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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