Colorado Medical Society

Introduced by:           James Regan, MD

Subject:                      Teenage Drivers

Referred to:               Reference Committee on Health Affairs

 

WHEREAS, the Colorado Legislature, in passing House Bill 99-1158 on June 4, 1999, embraced the spirit of "graduated drivers licenses" for new, teenage drivers under the age of seventeen, and

 

WHEREAS, the statute limits the number of occupants to one in the front seat and to a number not to exceed the number of seatbelts, in the back seat, and

 

WHEREAS, agencies including the National Safety Council, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and the National Transportation Safety Board are currently endorsing "tough restrictions" which would prohibit new teen drivers from carrying more than one passenger under the age of 20, and

 

WHEREAS, such agencies have cited properly conducted and published studies revealing that the presence of passengers can powerfully affect the likelihood of a crash, and

 

WHEREAS, the relative risk of death for drivers aged 16 years with three passengers has been shown to be 2.82, and for 17 year olds with three passengers 3.07, as compared to driving with no passengers, and

 

WHEREAS, in the last twelve months the number of states which limit the count of passengers to either none or one has increased from 7 to a current 19, and

 

WHEREAS, in a June 2004 paper acting as a blue print for North American graduated licensing programs, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Traffic Injury Research Foundation have declared that Òthe most important component of a graduated system is restricting high-risk driving once an initial license is obtainedÓ, therefore be it

 

Resolved, that the Colorado Medical Society, while acknowledging the vision and observed benefits of House Bill 99-1158 which introduced a graduated drivers license program to Colorado, and more recently HB 04-1017 which lengthens a learnerÕs permit from six months to the current one year duration, support legislation which would restrict newly-licensed drivers under the age of eighteen to carry no more than one passenger under the age of twenty for the first 6 months of their licensure, and no more than three such passengers, unless immediate family members, over the ensuing six months.

FISCAL IMPACT: None