Graduated Licensing Laws Reduce S.C. Teen Crashes

South Carolina’s teenage drivers were involved in fewer car crashes during the past four years according to Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The institute compares the effect of the nation’s driving laws on youth and also rated South Carolina driving laws as “fair,” up from a marginal rating the state received in 2000.

Rader attributed the change to South Carolina’s graduated driver-licensing laws, which went into effect in 1998. Such laws require teen drivers to gradually receive full-driving privileges.

Allison Love of the South Carolina Insurance News Service says the laws positive effect can been seen throughout the state. Teen-driver crashes in South Carolina declined nearly 1 percent in 1999, to 13.8 percent from 14.5 percent in 1997 and 1998, according to the most recent information from the Insurance News Service. But other states have taken stricter tactics with younger drivers. North Carolina makes teens drive with adults for one year, twice as long as South Carolina, before they can drive by themselves.

Rob Foss, senior research scientists at the University of North Carolina’s Highway Safety Research Center in Chapel Hill, N.C., says that’s why teen crashes there have fallen by up to 37 percent during the same time period.

At least 40 states now have graduated driver-licensing laws in some form, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.