Questing for Atlantis

The following was e-mailed to all members of the General Assembly.

I am writing to ask that you oppose A3069, also known as Kyleigh’s Law. It was inspired by a grievous tragedy, and has the noblest of intentions, but neither is a guarantee of good policy. It is absolutely vital for all parties involved to take a step back and logically evaluate the probable effects of this bill, something that the Senate failed to do.

Kyleigh’s Law has a three prong approach: increase restrictions on young drivers, increase penalties for violating those restrictions, and decals for provisional drivers. While all of these seem reasonable on the surface, a more thorough analysis reveals severe flaws with all of them.

The increase in restrictions is centered on an expansion of the waiting period before an individual can receive a provisional license. The logic is that more time spent on an examination permit will provide greater experience and make safer drivers.

This might be true, but something needs to be taken into account. What this restriction effectively does is increases the cost (in time) of getting a driver’s license, and that cost increase will likely lead to several negative unintended consequences.

The first possibility is that by increasing the time cost of obtaining a license, young drivers will be all the more ecstatic over receiving it, and will go all out once they have the license. This of course means they will be driving more often, and quite possibly, more recklessly, not less.

The second possibility is that by increasing the time cost people will defer getting their license until they are old enough to bypass the most onerous of restrictions. As a result individuals will get licenses with little experience and little in the way of requirement. This is a disastrous possibility – the main danger of young drivers is inexperience, not age.

This brings us to higher penalties for violations by provisional drivers. The logic seems to be that with higher penalties young drivers will be less likely to violate the restrictions for fear of punishment.

People frequently seem to think this way, but the evidence seldom seems to support that idea. Think about it, if punishment effectively deterred wrongdoing how common would cheating on tests, underage drinking, or illegal drug use be?

Or since we’re discussing a driving issue, what about road offenses? Speeding, talking on a handset while driving, and not signaling when turning are all nominally illegal in NJ but still happen regularly.

The fact is breaking the rules can have great advantages and minimal costs, particularly when enforcement is difficult, like it is with rules pertaining to driving. With so many cars and only so many cops, many people will get away with not obeying the law.

Teens aren’t stupid. They know this. Some will obey the rules. But I guarantee plenty will gamble they won’t be caught and disregard the rules. And for some reason I figure it’s not the kids that obey the rules that are causing the accidents.

And I believe this is part of where the decal comes in. The idea is that by placing the decal, police will have an easier time identifying young drivers and making sure they’re obeying the laws. But, considering the points already made, that doesn’t make much sense.

We know some of the young driving population won’t obey the rules. The decal is supposed to make sure they obey the rules by making them more visible. But if they’re already breaking the rules, why would they obey the one that would make it easier to catch them?

And then there’s the injustice of the package as a whole.

Youths aren’t the only groups that have accidents at disproportionately high rates. The elderly have an above average number of deadly crashes. Where’s the effort to save their lives by restricting their driving rights?

And what about Native Americans or Hispanics? “Race and Ethnicity in Fatal Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes 1999 – 2004,” a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, shows both groups have fatal accidents at significantly higher rates than any other population.

So why don’t we put special requirements on them? According to Sen. Madden, “This bill isn’t about profiling or discriminating against young drivers.”

If it’s not discriminating against young drivers to put such restrictions on them, it wouldn’t be to place them on other groups either.

The fact is that while this bill has the best of intentions, it will do little, if anything, to curb reckless behaviour by teen drivers, but will place an unjust regulatory burden on a small segment of the population.

Kyleigh’s death was a horrible tragedy. But passing a bad bill won’t make it any better, and it won’t save teens from suffering her fate.