If you're euphoric over falling gasoline prices, you might want to consider the effect of cheap gas on drivers who have little money to spend — mainly teen drivers on smartphones.
"Cellphones, new drivers and low gas prices are the perfect storm!" proclaimed Walt Stevens, who had been reading about a South Dakota study showing how crashes tend to rise as gas prices fall. This phenomenon tends to play out mostly among teens.
The Garfield reader observed this trend on a recent Saturday as he walked past Paramus High School and saw dozens of teens — on hand-held cellphones — driving away from an event and merging into heavy traffic on Century Road.
Oradell's Judy Michelini also has witnessed "dozens of teen drivers with four or five students" piling into their cars lately.
Visit a local high school after a teen event to see one of the unexpected consequences of cheap gas, as Walt did on that recent Saturday in Paramus.
With teens contributing far more than their share of road crashes, Walt said it stands to reason that their share of the annual road death count will likely spike, a suspicion confirmed by more than one study. For her part, Judy asked if "police care about this."
It's a good question. Here's another:
Why single out teens when drivers in every other age group also carry a significant number of passengers while also violating New Jersey's hand-held cellphone-driving law?
Because New Jerseyans rack up $14.8 billion — more than all but three other states — in annual medical bills and other costs attributed to road crashes, events that kill more young people each year than any disease, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's one reason why, under the state's Graduated Driver License law, novice teen drivers are banned from using any electronic devices — hand held or hands free — and they're restricted from carrying more than one teen passenger for at least the first year of licensure.
Of course, police insist that they enforce the GDL law. But, like their reluctance to routinely stake out bars for drunken drivers, they don't usually make a habit of hanging around high schools to corral teens. Instead, they practice targeted enforcement — drunken driving around the Christmas holidays, seat-belt enforcement around Labor Day, etc. In each case, police departments apply for federal grants to fund overtime operations during these periods.
But two studies released this week — one by the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and another by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation — pointed to loopholes in New Jersey's GDL law that, if closed, might reduce the carnage in other ways.
In its annual report ranking states for successful driving laws, the Advocates left New Jersey off its Top 10 list, partly because its teen-driving laws do not include a feature requiring novices to fulfill 30 to 50 hours of mandatory, supervised driving before they're eligible for unrestricted licenses.
Like the Advocates, the Traffic Injury Research Foundation praised features of New Jersey's GDL laws. But it also criticized Garden State lawmakers for failing to improve the mandatory supervised training requirement, which currently calls for only 12 hours behind the wheel. In its evidence-based report — "A New GDL Framework" — the foundation also called for parental involvement and participation in the GDL process.
Under this approach, parents would be required to attend a 90-minute parent-teen orientation — either in school or on-line — so they could appreciate the advantages of training young drivers under the GDL.
Advocates have been pressing for this reform since former Gov. Jon Corzine's Teen Driver Study Commission called for it in a package of bills in 2008, most of which passed. But saying it had not been fully researched, Governor Christie vetoed this proposal in 2010.
A current bill sponsored by Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, calls for 50 hours of supervised training, including 10 hours at night, as well as extending the permit phase of licensure from six months to a year. It passed the Assembly last year but the bill has no Senate sponsor.
If passed, the law would effectively extend permit and provisional licensing status to two years, nearly enough time to allow novices to achieve 1,000 hours of total driving time, an amount that experts believe produces competence behind the wheel.
"The best way to learn to drive safely is through practice," explained Pam Fischer, a former state Division of Highway Traffic Safety director who headed the 2008 study commission. "And research shows that the biggest influence on teen driving is their parents."
Fischer added that only three other states — Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota — lack GDL provisions calling for at least 40 hours of supervised driving, a standard backed by several scientific studies.
"The foundation based its proposals on the best evidence available," said Cathleen Lewis, chief spokeswoman for New Jersey AAA, which supports the bill along with driver-education teachers and driving schools.
Lewis noted that adding substantially to New Jersey's supervised driving training requirement would also make New Jersey eligible for additional federal road-safety aid — a figure that she estimated could reach $600,000, about 5 percent of the Highway Traffic Safety Division's funding authority.
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