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Teens on Wheels
They want to drive - right now! - but under a new law, 16- and 17-year-olds have to grow into that privilege
By Martin J. Waters, Record-Journal staff
It was late at night, on a two-lane road crowded with pedestrians, and a 16-year-old girl who had received her driver's license one week earlier was driving a 5,500-pound sports-utility vehicle, with three other children along for the ride.
Just for a moment, Marcy A. Jarzabek steered slightly to the right as she drove south on Route 17 in Durham. That turn of the wheel killed 15-year-old Jason Gelinas of Meriden. Three friends walking with him after visiting the Durham Fair were injured, one severely.
Jarzabek, who was carrying two younger siblings and a friend in a 1997 GMC Suburban, told police she had trouble seeing out the windshield, which had fogged up.
She had been trying to adjust the defogger controls when she struck the pedestrians at about 10 minutes before midnight on a Saturday night in September of 2002. She had received her driver's license at age 16 years, 4 months - the earliest age allowed in Connecticut.
The death of Gelinas became a rallying point for advocates of imposing more restrictions on young teen-age drivers in Connecticut.
Even with a new law that went into effect, however, the state remains far behind the curve of a nationwide trend toward passenger restrictions and nighttime curfews for young drivers, along with big increases in required hours of behind-the-wheel training.
Last year the General Assembly enacted a law imposing restrictions on carrying of passengers by drivers under 18 during the first six months they are licensed. (Please see details on Page A4.) But it did nothing on the other two aspects of what's become known as graduated licensing: nighttime restrictions and more hours of practice driving.
Proponents of the new law cite nationwide statistics showing that new drivers are far more likely to have accidents when they are distracted by friends riding with them. One passenger doubles the accident risk and two or more make the chance of an accident five times higher, according to the insurance group. Overall, 16- and 17-year-olds are involved in twice as many accidents per miles driven as are 18-year-olds.
But many teenagers are voicing opposition to the law - in some cases, all-out disdain for it.
"It's stupid. I think kids are going to do it anyhow," said 16-year-old Tisha Ventura of Wallingford, who suggested a petition campaign asking for the law to be repealed. She was attending a class at ABC Driving Education in downtown Wallingford.
"I would like to be able to drive my friends to school," said Katelyn Quinto, who also lives in Wallingford. "We've waited long enough," said Wallingford resident Mark Esposito.
Among two dozen 16-year-olds gathered for the class, only one had anything positive to say about the law. "It's a good law because it protects a lot of people," said Jared Marmitt of Meriden.
Gail DeBaise, owner of the driving school, said that sample was representative.
"They all think it's a bummer," she said. "The average parent is very happy. Their kids can drive on their own. So, it's a passenger law. The passenger law is going to be a very good law."
State Sen. Biagio Ciotto, D-Wethersfield, co-chairman of the legislature's Transportation Committee and long-time backer of graduated licensing, views the law as a minimal step. He would like teenagers to find out about the issues before criticizing the changes.
"These laws are not being passed to punish you. They're being passed because we love you. This law will save lives," he said.
State Rep. David A. Scribner, R-Brookfield and a champion of the new law, said, "It's really more about lack of experience than it is about age ... We're simply trying to give them a greater amount of time to get experience behind the wheel in risk-free situations.
For three years, Scribner has been unsuccessful in gaining approval a nighttime curfew or a requirement for more behind-the-wheel driver education. Federal highway safety officials recommend that states adopt curfews that cover at least 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and require at least four times as many on-the-road driver-training hours as Connecticut requires.
Opposition to increasing the hours of practice driving in Connecticut included some lobbying by private driver-education schools. They feared that if course fees were increased to cover the expense of more one-on-one instruction, fewer teenagers would enroll, Scribner said. Students in driver-education courses must receive eight hours.
Parents of other teenagers must certify to the state that they provided at least 25 hours of classroom instruction and eight hours on the road. Even if they do not take a regular driver-education course, all teenagers must attend a five-hour course on safety and alcohol and drug awareness.
State bucks a trend
Even with the new law, Connecticut teenagers face far fewer driving requirements and restrictions than those in many other states.
The 2003 legislature did not approve a nighttime curfew for young drivers that was part of the original proposal. Along with other issues, that leaves Connecticut still trailing a strong nationwide trend toward tightening up requirements for 16- and 17-year-olds to gain driver's licenses: "Nighttime curfews are imposed on recently licensed drivers in 35 states, according to information compiled by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The cutoff time is midnight or earlier in 31 states, including Massachusetts, Maine and New Jersey. New York's curfew is 9 p.m. for the first six months of driving. Jarzabek was 15 miles from home, driving the other way, only a few minutes before midnight.
Nationally, passenger restrictions such as Connecticut's new law are seen as less important than curfews. Twenty-two states now have some form of passenger restrictions for newly licensed young drivers. They typically run for six months, as Connecticut's do.
Connecticut, with eight hours, requires far less behind-the-wheel training before becoming eligible to get a license. Twenty-three states have requirements ranging from 30 hours up to 50 hours. Rhode Island is one of the states with a 50-hour requirement.
Teenagers who have not taken a certified driver-education course must wait two more months to get a license in Connecticut, while many other states have longer delays to encourage driver education without mandating it. In California and Texas, the delay is two years, until age 18. Some states impose a driver-education requirement for everyone under 18. They include Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine and Vermont.
Most Connecticut public school systems have dropped their driver-education programs since federal subsidies began gradually disappearing in the 1980s. Only 36 of the 185 districts still have their own programs, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, although some others may offer courses by contracting with professional driving schools. Some states have substituted their own subsidies for the federal funding and a few, including California, require all local school districts to offer driver education courses.
Unlike some states, the motor vehicles department in Connecticut has no authority even to consider suspending the license of a young driver who is charged with serious traffic offenses until a court verdict is reached. Apparently, no action ever was taken against Marcy Jarzabek.
A privilege, not a right
Jarzabek was not arrested until five months after the fatal crash. She was charged in adult court with negligent homicide with a motor vehicle and other violations. But a judge at Middlesex Superior Court in Middletown granted her youthful offender status, sealing the proceedings and outcome of the case in secrecy like that of Juvenile Court. She was a candidate for youthful status because she was under 18 and the charges were misdemeanors.
As of last week, her driving record on file at the DMV showed that her license was never suspended and she still holds a license, according to William Seymour, spokesman for the department. The record shows no violations.
"The way it works is the court is supposed to notify us when there is a conviction for a motor-vehicle offense,"
Seymour said. The only exception allowing the department to act before a court decision is in drunken-driving cases, he said.
Because the court records are secret, it is not clear whether Jarzabek avoided guilty findings on the charges against her or whether the court made an error in failing to send a report.
Scribner views the Jarzabek case as an example both of the worst possible outcome for an inexperienced driver and proof that parents cannot be left on their own to regulate and restrict their children's driving.
"It was outrageous, with two younger siblings in the car. She shouldn't have been driving a vehicle like that," Scribner said. "With the parents, where was the decision there? Those who argue that this law interferes with parents' rights, I just don't buy it."
"It's not just about your own children and their lives. It's about all the others ... This truly is a public safety measure. It's about protecting everyone on our roads."
Scribner sees an increase in affluence over the past quarter-century as a contributor to the high death rate among teenage drivers.
"When I was 16, we all had licenses but hardly any of us had cars. Today you see a waiting list for a parking space at the high school," Scribner said. "People have come to believe that it's a necessity for a 16-year-old not only to have a license but to have a car. So there is a problem with a view that it's taking away a right ... It truly is a privilege and should be treated as such."
Although New Jersey, three years ago, became the first state to increase its minimum driving age to 17, experts see no trend for other states to follow. Many say there is no political will to act, especially on a blanket increase in the driving age. Most states have minimum ages between 16 and 16½.
Nationwide, state legislators face opposition from some vocal parents who complain that it's inconvenient to keep driving their children. Scribner, who worked for three years to get the 2002 bill enacted into law, especially dislikes that argument.
"Go ask the parents who have lost a 16- or 17-year-old. I can assure you they aren't going to tell you about inconvenience," he said.
Scribner and Ciotto both said they do not expect the 2004 legislature to consider any proposals to make more changes to teenage drivers' license requirements.
"Let's see how this proposal works out. If we have to go to nighttime restrictions, we may reconsider that," Ciotto said. Scribner is prepared to raise the issues of setting a nighttime curfew and increasing driver-training requirements again in 2005.
Scribner is not sure why Connecticut is more reluctant than most other states to place more limits on teenage drivers. Widespread lack of good public transportation may be a contributor, he said. But public opinion, as transmitted through state representatives and senators, appears to be an important cause of the reluctance, he said.
"There seems to be a sentiment in place that believes by imposing these restrictions that the legislature is interfering with parental rights. That's not what this is about at all. It's about trying to save lives."
