Teens must take to the road to get a license

Posted 7:51AM on Sunday 12th January 2003 ( 22 years ago )

ROCK SPRING - All first-time driver's license applicants must take on-the-road driving tests starting Wednesday. Georgia's 53 Department of Motor Vehicle Safety driver testing centers must administer the tests to get a sense of how new drivers handle real-life traffic in an effort to increase roadway safety, said spokeswoman Susan Sports. Nanette Stubbs of Chickamauga said she's glad her 16-year-old daughter, Brandy, has to prove she can handle herself on the road before getting a license. ``Getting on the road is better because it's more practice,'' Stubbs said. In the past, most Georgia testing centers required only an examination of how well new drivers maneuvered their vehicles in a parking lot. Now, applicants will have to properly drive through cones and show their skills in a confined area. If successful, they then drive on a predetermined route, where they are evaluated on traffic and safety skills, Sports said. ``Before we give teenagers a license, we want reasonable assurance that they can handle themselves in real-life traffic situations,'' Sports said. The change in testing came from driver-safety laws passed by the Legislature in the 2001 session. The law is designed to reduce traffic collisions and deaths involving teen drivers, Sports said. Brandy Stubbs said she thought the cones portion of the driving test was more difficult than the road part. But she wasn't entirely happy with the other parts of the new driving laws. ``If I were driving to school, I would want to be able to pick up my friends,'' she said. ``But it's on the safe side, so I kind of understand that, too.'' Several other stricter license rules are going into effect: Teen drivers must complete 40 hours of adult-supervised driving, including six hours of night driving. Teens who take driver's education courses must then complete 20 hours of adult-supervised driving. Teens can't drive on public roads between midnight and 6 a.m. Teens can't have more than three other passengers in the car who are less than 21 years old and not members of their immediate families. For six months after getting a license, teen drivers can't have any passengers who aren't part of their immediate families. Applicants under 18 must prove they're in school, have a parent's permission to withdraw from school or have received a GED or high school diploma. Teens must show they've completed a course on alcohol and drug awareness.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/1/185696