Alcohol Involvement: Another distinction of fatal crashes involving 16-year-old drivers is a positive one.  The rate of alcohol involvement is low.  Only 5 percent of all 16-year-old drivers killed in 1 993 crashes had blood alcohol concentrations of 0.1 0 percent or more.  This compares with 28 percent for older teenagers (17-19 years old), and 48 percent for drivers 20-49 years old,

- Safety Belt Use: Many of the 16 year- Olds who die in crashes aren't using belts. in fact, a higher proportion of teenagers in general don't use belts, compared with older drivers.  This is the finding Of Surveys conducted at high schools.

- Passenger Deaths: It isn't just 16-year-old drivers who are dying in disproportionate numbers.  Two out of every three teens who died as passengers in 1993 crashes were traveling in vehicles driven by other teens, and 16 year-olds are particularly implicated.  Fatal crashes involving drivers this age are much more likely to occur with three or more occupants in the vehicle and the occupants are usually other teens than are crashes involving older drivers.

Among parents with the most telling comments about the readiness of 16 year-olds to drive are people whose own children died in crashes shortly after they -- or friends of theirs - got licenses.  Sandra Tucker, for example, says she feels 'like that driver's license was a terminal disease.  It was only a matter of time" until her son would be in a crash.

Sixteen-year-old John -Tucker died in a single-vehicle crash five months after getting his license.  "They can take a test and get a license, go anywhere," Sandra adds, "and a 16 year-old doesn't have any sense.  It's just insane.  They don't have the experience.  I don't think they're responsible enough."
Other parents who know a lot about licensing procedures in their states - and who have strong opinions about the policies - are the ones whose children recently got their licenses.
Among 1,000 parents of 1 7 year-olds surveyed in November 1 994, almost 9 out of 1 0 said their children already had licenses.  Eighty-one percent said their children were ready when licensed to drive under most conditions.
At the same time, 41 percent of the parents surveyed said they think it should be more difficult to obtain a driver's license.  The same percentage think licenses shouldn't be allowed until teenagers are six months past their 16th birthdays - or older.  Parents also overwhelmingly support restrictions for beginning teenage drivers:
90 percent said they favor a minimum period of supervised driving before teenagers get their licenses. Most said they favor @i three- to six-month supervised driving period.
74 percent said they favor night driving curfews for beginning teenage drivers.  Almost all favor curfews beginning at or before midnight.
97 percent said they favor a blood alcohol concentration of zero for teenage drivers.  A concentration of 0. 10 percent defines alcohol-impaired driving for older drivers in most states, but most states already specify lower thresholds for teenage drivers.
58 percent said they're in favor of graduated licensing programs that would include multiple restrictions on beginners.

When parents understand the risk factors involved in letting 16 year-olds get behind the wheel, they can act to improve the situation for their own children:

• Give 16 year-olds as much driving time supervised by an adult as possible, even after the teenagers get their licenses.
• Be aware of the high risk when 16-year-old drivers and their peers travel together, without adults.  Make. new drivers wait to go with friends until they get plenty of supervised driving time.  Don't assume your 16 year-old drives the same way with peers in the car as when you're present.

• With or without a curfew law, prohibit late night driving that's unsupervised.  Teen outings late at night tend to he recreational and pose more risk. (Nine states have laws restricting night driving by teens younger than specified ages - Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and South Dakota.)

• Don't assume that belt use when you're in the car with your 16 year-old means belts are used a] I the time, especially when your child is out with peers.  Remember that belt use is lower among teenagers than older people, so insist on belts all the time.
• Choose safe cars.  Large ones are safer than small ones, and air bags enhance safety.  Avoid performance cars - the combination of high performance and a young driver is deadly.

• Prohibit driving after drinking any alcohol.  Even though this is a factor in only 1 0 percent of crashes involving 16-year-old drivers, it becomes a much worse problem among older teenagers.

A license to drive is a ticket to freedom for 16 year olds and, in many cases, for their parents who don't have to chauffeur them around anymore.  But the price is steep - more than a third of all deaths during the teens' next two years will be from crashes.  Do 16 year olds get too much freedom too soon?  If so, what to do?  Some policy measures can help keep them alive.

High school driver education is not the answer.  In many families, it may be the most convenient way for beginners to learn how to drive.  But it doesn't produce safer drivers. in terms of crash experience, learning to drive this way is about the same as learning from parents or private driving schools.

A promising approach to the overall problem involves modifying 16 year-olds' initial driving helping them learn by controlling progression to unrestricted driving, lifting controls one by one until a young driver "graduates" to full licensure.  The crux is to influence when beginning drivers may drive and with whom.  Restrictions typically include limits on teen passengers, a prohibition on night driving, and/or a requirement that beginners drive only with an older, experienced driver in the car. the blood alcohol concentration specified for teens may also be lower than the one for older drivers.

The first graduated licensing program was implemented in New Zealand in 1987.  It's effective, and similar systems were adopted last year in two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Nova Scotia.

"A lot of people think of the restrictions as being inhibiting, curtailing ... but I like to think of [graduated licensing in terms of a protective mechanism," says Herb M. Simpson, director of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation of Canada, adding that parents like it. "The difficult thing is to be able to say no.  It's compelling when you have teens who want to be able to use the vehicle, and the parent has to say no.  One of the advantages we've heard from parents is that graduated licensing puts them in the position that they're simply complying with rules."

Driving is a far more complex task than most 16 year-olds realize.  Allan F. Williams, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's senior vice president for research, explains that beginners "have to accumulate a lot of experience before they're able to combine steering with scanning the environment and putting it all together, all at the same time, behind the wheel." That's not all.  Williams adds that "handling a car responsibly takes more than mastering the skills that are involved.  It takes the maturity that can only come with time,"

Sixteen year-olds "can't learn it overnight," says David F. Preusser, another researcher who has studied the problem of teenage drivers.  "it takes a long time to learn what to do and how to predict danger.  It also takes time to develop the maturity to make responsible decisions behind the wheel."

Restricting initial driving to daytime hours is part of creating time to learn.  It's not just that night driving is a more difficult task.  It also "tends to be recreational," Preusser points out.  "The 16 year-olds go out with their friends.  They're thinking about having fun.  And then, if they also have a ton and a half of metal, glass, and plastic hurtling down the highway at 50, 60, or 70 miles an hour, this is a dangerous set of circumstances." Graduated licensing heads off such circumstances by introducing night driving only after on-the-road experience is gained during the day.

So far, not one U.S. state his a full-fledged graduated program.  Interest in the idea is on the increase, though, and we may be on the verge of following the Canadian example.  "it took several years in Ontario," Simpson remembers, "not to convince the public but to convince the political body that the public really wanted graduated licensing.  And to do that required a groundswell I of activity.  There must have been 15 inquests, and in every one of those cases the death could have been averted .... These were all very poignant and very dramatic reminders of the potential power of graduated licensing."