How a new Indiana law may save teens' lives

In the first three and a half years after it became a law, Indiana's graduated driver's license (GDL) produced its intended effect — fewer teens injured and killed in motor vehicle crashes. But a new state law that went into effect Wednesday shows that keeping young drivers safe necessitates more than just focusing on 16-year-olds exercising the newfound freedom to drive.

Indiana's GDL law went into effect July 1, 2009. It included cell phone bans and limited night and morning driving. But the key components were raising to 16½ the age at which a teen could get a driver's license and requiring 50 hours of supervised driving time. The Indiana University Public Policy Institute found that from Jan. 1, 2009, through Dec. 31, 2012, younger drivers had 31 percent fewer crashes and saw injuries decline by nearly 40 percent.

Sherry Deane from AAA Hoosier Motor Club pushed for Indiana's GDL. She said proponents wondered if it might prompt some teens to wait until they were 18 to get their licenses so they wouldn't face restrictions. And fewer teens are getting their licenses, but a University of Michigan study found that's because teens think it's too expensive to own and operate a car.

Those teens may still pay a high cost, even with their lives. While serious accidents among younger teens declined in the wake of the GDL, Deane says the state saw an increase in the number of fatalities among 18- to 20-year-olds who could get a license without needing 50 hours of supervised driving.

The spike in older-teen traffic deaths didn't go unnoticed. State Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, sponsored a bill that became law Wednesday. The revamped GDL law expands the cell phone ban up to age 21 and limits night and morning driving up to age 18. And the GDL requirements were expanded to 18-year-old drivers, who now must complete 50 hours of supervised training to acquire a license.

"I'm a firm believer in data-driven safety," said Soliday, a former commercial airline pilot who compares supervised driving requirements to logging his early flight hours seated next to an experienced pilot.

The law also provides an incentive for 15-year-olds to learn to drive by reducing the waiting period for a license by 90 days if students take driver's education and log 50 supervised hours.

"Now we wait and see if the numbers in that older age group come down," Soliday said. "And if they don't, we'll have to ask 'why,' and 'what's next?'"

Soliday's questions are data-driven but not without human concern. They could just as easily be uttered by grieving parents, coping with the death or serious injury of their teen driver.

Augustine is the interim CEO of the Indiana Youth Institute. Follow him on Twitter: @augustine_glenn.