Teen Drivers and Alcohol: It’s a Deadly Mix
Find Affordable California Auto Insurance Coverage
Compare Quotes From Top Companies and Save
Secured with SHA-256 Encryption
Eric Stauffer
Licensed Insurance Agent
Eric Stauffer is an insurance agent and banker-turned-consumer advocate. His priority is educating individuals and families about the different types of insurance coverage. He is passionate about helping consumers find the best coverage for their budgets and personal needs. Eric is the CEO of C Street Media, a full-service marketing firm and the co-founder of ProperCents.com, a financial educat...
Licensed Insurance Agent
UPDATED: Jan 11, 2008
It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right coverage choices.
Advertiser Disclosure: We strive to help you make confident auto insurance decisions. Comparison shopping should be easy. We are not affiliated with any one auto insurance provider and cannot guarantee quotes from any single provider. Our partnerships don’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own. To compare quotes from many different companies please enter your ZIP code on this page to use the free quote tool. The more quotes you compare, the more chances to save.
Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about auto insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything auto insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by auto insurance experts.
Despite this week’s high profile cases of apparent underage drinking and driving, California’s graduated license and zero tolerance programs for young drivers appear to be taking hold.
Over the weekend, police arrested actress Lindsay Lohan on suspicion of driving under the influence after she crashed her car following an evening of nightclubbing. But while the 20-year-old celebrity survived to check into rehab, three Perris teenagers lost their lives Wednesday in an apparent case of high speed drinking and driving along Interstate 15 in Escondido.
Tragic crashes such as this are occurring with less frequency since California instated zero tolerance and graduated licensing provisions, said Candysse Miller, executive director of the Insurance Information Network of California.
"California has some of the toughest young driver laws in the country, and this week’s high-profile and tragic collisions are graphic reminders of why these laws exist," Miller said.
According to a 2006 report by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, teen crashes have dropped significantly since California’s provisional licensing program took effect in 1998. The Institute found a 23 percent overall reduction in per-capita crash involvement with 16-year-old drivers, and that crash rates with teen passengers dropped 38 percent after the inception of the graduated licensing program.
Traffic collisions are the number one cause of death for teenagers in the United States, though provisional licensing programs appear to be reducing the number of teen highway deaths. In 2005, 5,288 teenagers died in traffic collisions – 40 percent fewer than in 1975.
California’s Zero Tolerance Law also prohibits drivers under age 21 to be behind the wheel with a blood alcohol level of .01percent or higher. Under the law, a young driver may have their license suspended for a year on their first offense.
Nationwide, the number of teen drivers killed in crashes involving alcohol is also down. Between 1996 and 2005, the fatal crash rate per 100,000 down by 48 percent at night and 40 percent during the day for 16-year-old drivers, with fatal crash rates also down among other teenagers, the IIHS found.
The IIHS research on California’s graduated licensing program may be found at http://www.iihs.org/.
IINC is a non-profit, non-lobbying insurance communications association. For more information on this and other issues, please visit the IINC Web site at http://www.iinc.org/.
Source: Insurance Information Network of California – iinc.org