When should a teen start driving?

Ready or not? A mom wonders about her 16-year-old daughter and Roadguy wonders what you think.

By JIM FOTI, Star Tribune

Last update: November 15, 2009 - 7:18 PM

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poll: When do you think a teen should start driving?

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The problem of teen drivers texting or talking on their cell phones has received a lot of attention, but alert reader Sharon of Andover has a more basic question:

Should her teen be driving, period?

In many households, there's no discussion -- the teen is so eager for freedom and the parents are so eager to stop playing chauffeur, that getting a license happens ASAP.

Noting that young people vary widely in maturity and ability, safety experts say there are many good reasons to wait, especially given that teens are far more likely to die in a car than anywhere else.

"A newly licensed 17-year-old is safer than a newly licensed 16-year-old," says Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Virginia. In other words, another year of growing up is valuable.

So is more practice. "The more supervised driving experience, the better the outcome," says Nathan Bowie, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Teens should spend extensive time behind the wheel in all kinds of driving conditions before getting their licenses, he said, and he encouraged parents to remember that they're serving as role models every time their kids ride with them.

Sharon would like to know how this has been handled in your family, and so would Roadguy. Please send in your thoughts.

Hidden beauty

One of Roadguy's friends has a question:

What is with the really unattractive barriers that sprang up along 35E between Mendota Heights and Burnsville in the last couple of weeks? ... The post-and-cable barriers are not aesthetically pleasing, and I'm wondering what their function is.

Cable-median barriers are about as pretty as power lines, but they're very good at their assigned task, which is to keep vehicles from crossing over into oncoming traffic. Such head-on collisions are particularly deadly, as we were reminded a little more than a week ago when such a crash on I-35 in Forest Lake led to three deaths. Some visual clutter seems a small price to pay for all but eliminating such risk.

A bit more on LEDs in the road

Alert reader Bill thought last week's item about the LED lights embedded in the pavement was too brief -- he wanted details, so here are a few more tidbits from Todd Kramascz, a Minnesota Department of Transportation spokesman.

The lights, which mark off a MnPass shoulder lane on northbound I-35W in south Minneapolis, are hard-wired and are supposed to be snowplow-proof.

"This is the first use of these lights in the metro area, and their merits are being looked at for the future of I-94 between the downtowns," he said. "Cities in Europe and Australia/New Zealand currently employ them on freeways, and various U.S. cities use them to delineate crosswalks."

The 900-foot stretch of lights cost $230,000, which should explain why LEDs won't be taking the place of miles of road paint any time soon.

Jim Foti can be reached at 612-673-4491 or roadguy@startribune.com.

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