You asked for details of the Connecticut law placing certain restrictions on 16- and 17-year old licensed drivers. You also wanted us to provide you with some of the research that shows that accident risk for teen drivers increases with the number of occupants of the vehicle.

CONNECTICUT LAW PLACING RESTRICTIONS ON 16- AND 17 YEAR OLD LICENSEES (CGS § 14-36)

Once a 16- or 17-year old receives a driver’s license, Connecticut law imposes the following restrictions on driving privileges:

1. for the first three months of licensure, he may transport only one passenger, who may only be (1) his parent or guardian (at least age 25 and a licensed driver), (2) a DMV-licensed driving instructor, or (3) any other person who (a) is at least age 20, (b) has been licensed to operate the type of vehicle the teenage driver is operating for at least four years before the time he is being transported, and (c) has not had this license suspended at any time during this four-year period; and

2. for the fourth through sixth month of licensure, he may transport, in addition to the above, only other immediate family members.

In addition, the law prohibits a 16- or 17-year old licensed driver from (1) operating a vanpool vehicle or any public service motor vehicle; (2) carrying more passengers than the vehicle has seat-belt-equipped seating positions; and (3) if endorsed to operate a motorcycle, carrying any passenger on the motorcycle for the first six months he is authorized to operate one.

The law also: (1) designates as an infraction any violation of the driving restrictions; (2) authorizes the commissioner to suspend a license until age 18, after notice and opportunity for a hearing, for a second or subsequent violation of the restrictions; and (3) authorizes the commissioner to adopt implementing regulations for the restriction provisions.

RESEARCH ON INCREASED ACCIDENT RISK FOR TEEN DRIVERS CARRYING PASSENGERS

Since 1995, there have been at least a dozen studies attempting to examine whether young drivers (typically 16- and 17-year olds) are at greater risk of crash involvement when they carry passengers than when they drive alone. Early rudimentary studies of the subject go back as far as the late 1960s.

One of the most widely cited studies of this subject was conducted by Chen, Baker, Braver, and Li and was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March 2000 (Vol. 283, No. 12). The researchers examined data for the period from 1992 through 1997 available from the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the General Estimates System and from the U. S. Department of Transportation’s 1995 National Personal Transportation Survey. The researchers found that the relative risk of driver death increased for both 16- and 17-year old drivers as the number of passengers in the vehicle increased. In contrast, they found that for driver aged 30-59, the risk of driver death actually decreased with passengers in the vehicle.

Specifically, they found that deaths per 10 million trips for 16-year olds drivers were 1. 99 when driving with no passengers, 2. 76 when driving with one passenger, 3. 69 when driving with two passengers, and 5. 61 when driving with three or more passengers. This translated to a 39% greater relative risk of death with one passenger, 86% with two passengers, and 182% with three or more passengers compared to driving without passengers. The researchers also found similar increased death risk for 17-year old drivers (1. 47 deaths per 10 million trips with no passengers, 2. 18 with one passenger, 3. 79 with two passengers, and 4. 52 with three or more passengers).

In addition to this study, we are including copies of three other treatments of this subject. These include two reports by Alan F. Williams of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety—one published in the Journal of Safety Research in 2003 that discusses risk patterns of teenage drivers and the other published by the Insurance Institute in 2001 (“Teenage Passengers in Motor Vehicle Crashes: A Summary of Current Research”) in which he summarizes results and conclusions of several of the most recent studies of this issue. The final report we are providing you was also published in the Journal of Safety Research in 2003 and was written by Mei-Li Lin and Kevin T. Fearn. Entitled “The Provisional License: Nighttime and Passenger Restrictions—a Literature Review,” it, among other things, summarizes the conclusions of 12 studies of the effect of passengers on teenage drivers conducted between 1990 and 2002. These studies also tend to identify passengers in the vehicle as an additional risk factor for very young drivers.

JF: ro