Tag Archives: teens

Teens

The Facts: PA Young Driver Licensing

Pennsylvania licenses young drivers through a three-stage program, reflecting the driver’s gradual progression in skill, experience and decision-making ability.

LEARNER’S PERMIT

After successfully completing a physical examination, vision screening and knowledge test, young drivers may begin behind-the-wheel practice. Basic driving skills and safe habits are developed under adult-supervised conditions. Requirements under the law include:

  • Six months of learning: A six-month skill-building period to practice and gain experience is required before a young driver may take the road test for a junior license.
  • Supervising adult for permit holder must be at least 21: An experienced, licensed driver aged 21 or older must accompany the young driver at all times.
  • 65 hours of adult-supervised skill building: A parent or guardian must certify (Parent or Guardian Certification Form (DL-180C)) that the young driver’s six months of skill building included at least 65 hours of practical, adult-supervised driving experience.
  • Nighttime driving restriction begins at 11:00 PM: The young driver may not be behind the wheel between the hours of 11:00 PM and 5:00 AM. Young drivers may travel for employment and for volunteer or charitable service during these hours, but they must carry proper documentation.
  • Passenger limitation: The number of passengers must not exceed the number of seat belts in the vehicle. This applies to all drivers under age 18.
  • Learner’s permit valid for one year: The learner’s permit will be valid for one year with extensions for those requiring more practice time.
  • Required sanctions for high-risk drivers under age 18: A young driver’s permit will be suspended for 90 days if he or she accumulates six or more points or is convicted of a single high-speed violation (driving 26 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit).

JUNIOR LICENSE

Young drivers who graduate to a junior license have satisfactorily completed all learner’s permit requirements, including the road test, but the following restrictions still apply:

  • Required sanctions for high-risk drivers under age 18: A young driver’s junior license will be suspended for 90 days if he or she accumulates six or more points or is convicted of a single high-speed violation (driving 26 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit).
  • Nighttime driving restriction begins at 11:00 PM: Even with a junior license, a young driver may not be behind the wheel between the hours of 11:00 PM and 5:00 AM. Exceptions for employment and volunteer or charitable service will apply, but young drivers must carry proper documentation regarding their need to travel.
  • Passenger limitation: The number of passengers must not exceed the number of seat belts in the vehicle. This applies to all drivers under age 18.

UNRESTRICTED LICENSE

A full, unrestricted license – typically issued at age 18 – provides unlimited driving privileges to teenagers who have progressed through the graduated system and have an established history of safe driving, If certain conditions are met, some young drivers may qualify for an early license before age 18.

  • Unrestricted license before age 18: A young driver cannot obtain an unrestricted license before age 18 unless he or she has maintained a crash-and conviction-free record for 12 months and has completed an approved driver’s education course. To apply for an unrestricted license before age 18, young drivers must complete a special form, DL-59, and submit it to PennDOT along with a certificate of completion from an approved driver’s education course.  An affidavit of consent from a parent, guardian, person in loco parentis or spouse who is at least 18 years of age must also be provided.
  • Passenger limitation: The number of passengers must not exceed the number of seat belts in the vehicle. This applies to all drivers under age 18.
  • Required sanctions for high-risk drivers under age 18: A young driver’s unrestricted license will be suspended for 90 days if he or she accumulates six or more points or is convicted of a single high-speed violation (driving 26 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit).
Safe Driving Tips, Teens

Just In Case: Don’t Forget ICE

No one plans to be in a car crash, but they happen.  On average, more than 8,000 people are injured in car accidents every day.

If you’re hurt in a car crash, you may not be conscious, or you may not be coherent.  Emergency personnel and first responders need to know how to contact your family if something has happened to you.  The easiest way for them to do this is with your own cell phone.

You can make it easy for police and EMTs to contact your family by adding ICE contacts to your cell phone.  ICE stands for “In Case of Emergency” – they’re trained to look for these alphabetically in your address book.

Create a new contact that looks like this:

ICE Mom 215-555-1212

Begin the entry with “ICE” and follow it with some descriptive context for who the person is to you – mom, dad, uncle, husband, wife, etc.  Add more than one ICE contact if needed.

Autism, Autism And Driving, Highway Safety, Teens

Autistic Teens Want To Drive

A study released by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Center For Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) looks at teens with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders and driving.  They found that, among their sample of 300 teens, two-thirds are already driving or expect to drive.

“As a clinician who specializes in children with disabilities, I was interested to find that so many teens with high functioning autism spectrum disorders want to drive and do,” says Patty Huang, MD, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at CHOP and the lead author of the study. “We need to help them. Establishing a few indicators for these teens that will likely have an interest in driving is the first step in developing targeted strategies and interventions to support them and their families.”

The findings suggest that parents of teens with HFASDs would benefit from guidance in deciding if driving is the right choice for their individual family. Readiness to drive can be difficult to assess, and parents should be encouraged to seek the help of their child’s physician, an occupational therapist or driving instructor.

Modern Driver Institute is the only driver education provider in Pennsylvania that specializes in working with individuals with autism.   We recommend that driving goals be incorporated into your student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP).

Teens

PA’s New Teen Driver Law

Governor Tom Corbett signed the new Teen Driver Law, known as “Lacey’s Law”, on October 25, 2011.  The law took effect December 24, 2011.

What does this new law mean to teen drivers?  There are several provisions you need to understand:

1. PASSENGER LIMIT

Under the new bill, teens under the age of 18 are not allowed to have more than one non-family passenger under 18 with them in the car, unless accompanied by a parent.  This means you can no longer give four or five friends a ride to school – pick your favorite and that’s it.  You can have more than one passenger over the age of 18, and family members don’t count for this law – so if you would normally give rides to your younger sister and brother, that’s still okay.  But only one friend under 18 in the car with you at any time.

Once you’ve had your license for six months, the non-family passenger limit increases to a maximum of three, so long as you maintain a clean, safe driving record or unless accompanied by a parent or guardian.

2. MORE TRAINING HOURS

Before this law, you needed to get 50 hours of supervised behind-the-wheel training before you could take the driver’s test.  That minimum is now up to 65, and the extra hours have their own requirements.  Under the new law, 10 hours must be done at night, and five must be done in inclement weather (rain, ice, fog and snow).

3. SEAT BELT LAW CHANGE

The new law makes it a primary offense not to use your seat belt under 18 – this means the police can pull you over if they see you driving un-belted.  And it applies to all of your passengers under 18, too – if your friend isn’t wearing his seat belt, the cops can ticket you.

Teens

New CHOP Study Pinpoints Causes of Teen Crashes

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and State Farm Insurance Companies recently published new research that pinpoints the most common errors teen drivers make that lead to a serious crash, and they aren’t the errors you think.

Researchers analyzed a nationally-representative federal database of more than 800 crashes involving teen drivers and identified a few common “critical errors” that are often one of the last in a chain of events leading up to a crash.  Seventy-five percent of these crashes were due to a critical teen driver error.  The two biggest reasons:

  • 42% of teen crashes were caused by poorly-developed safety threat awareness or risk assessment skills
  • 20% of teen crashes were caused by distractions

The researchers noted that environmental conditions, such as poor weather, vehicle malfunction, aggressive driving, or physical impairments such as drowsy driving were not primary factors in most crashes.

This study helps dispel the myth that most teen crashes are due to aggressive driving or thrill-seeking,” said Allison Curry, PhD, lead author and a researcher at CHOP’s Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP). “Promoting safe driving skills is as important as preventing problem behaviors.”

Click here to read the full press release from CHOP and State Farm.

Simulator Training, Teens

Can Simulators Help Autistic Teens Learn To Drive?

Thanks to a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, researchers at the University of Virginia are now studying the use of virtual reality driving simulators to train and evaluate the skills of teens with Asperger’s and high-functioning autism, both of which are considered autism spectrum disorders.

Driving a car is an important step toward independence for adolescents and young adults. With no legal restrictions on driving with autism spectrum disorder, this study aims to assess and develop driving skills in teens with Asperger’s and high-functioning autism, or HFA, and work around the symptoms that interfere with learning to drive.

“The symptoms of Asperger’s and HFA make learning to drive particularly challenging for individuals with this disorder,” said Ron Reeve, a professor in U.Va.’s Curry School of Education and a licensed clinical and school psychologist, who is the study’s co-investigator. “For example, they may hyper-focus on one aspect of driving and struggle with the multi-tasking required to simultaneously keep the car in the correct lane, maintain an appropriate distance from the car ahead, attend to a changing stoplight or other signal.”

Adolescents with Asperger’s and HFA have a high need for structure and predictability, which may present difficulty when unexpected disruptions break the routine – an almost daily occurrence when one is behind the wheel.

“Their difficulties with motor planning and coordination may interfere with the complexity of simultaneously steering, accelerating, judging time and distance and hazard detection,” Reeve noted.

The benefits of using the virtual reality driving simulator are multifold. The simulator offers safe exposure to challenging defensive driving demands. It also can play back and rehearse challenging maneuvers without the potential human element of getting frightened or frustrated with the driving performance of HFA trainees.

Daniel Cox, professor of behavioral medicine in the School of Medicine and co-principal investigator of the study, has utilized the simulator to effectively teach teens with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder to drive more safely.

The latest study, to begin this summer, will involve 20 HFA teenagers, each with a learner’s permit. Half the teens will receive virtual reality driving simulator training (10 sessions of progressively demanding maneuvers), going from learning how to maintain lane position to adding speed control, then braking, use of mirrors, turn signals, etc. Once the participants have reviewed these maneuvers, they will be applied in progressively more demanding virtual traffic and road conditions.

The other half of the study group will receive whatever training they would normally receive. For example, these teens will potentially receive on-the-road training with parents, driver’s education instructors or even professional driver’s training. Both study groups will be evaluated afterward by qualified, independent driving evaluators who will not know who did and did not receive the virtual reality training.

The study expects to report its findings by the summer of 2012.

“We hope that by controlling the complexities of driving for these teens on the simulator, and by replaying mistakes to provide a safe environment for practice, we can build skills in teen drivers with Asperger’s and high-functioning autism,” Cox said. However, he noted, “Not all individuals with autism spectrum disorders will be able to develop the skills to safely drive a car, and we hope the simulator will also help us determine who is and who is not a good candidate to become an independent driver.”

Source: University of Virginia website