Teenage drivers are not following laws that restrict them from driving during overnight hours, using cell phones and limiting the number of passengers they can have as well as their parents think they are.
That was the finding of a study released this week by State Farm Insurance which found that parents of teen drivers greatly over estimated how often their young drivers are obeying the law.
Most states, including Minnesota, have Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) programs. Each state sets its own rules, but they generally require teens to pass through three phases before earning full driving privileges and place limits on what they can do while behind the wheel.
The programs dramatically reduce the rate of fatal vehicle crashes involving teens, according to three studies funded by the National Institutes of Health.
According to the study, nearly 70 percent of parents said their teen driver always follows the rules that prohibit them from driving between midnight and 5 a.m. except in special circumstances. But less than half of the teens surveyed said they obey the law.
Almost as many parents said they believe their teen driver adheres to laws that restrict the number of passengers they may have in the vehicle. Yet, only 43 percent of teen said they abide.
The one area in which parents' belief and teens' behavior were closest had to do with cell phone use and texting. Eighty-two percent of parents said their teen driver stayed off the phone while behind the wheel, while 72 percent of teens said they did.
Parents listed peer pressure as the reason teens disobeyed laws regarding driver's licenses while teens said they did not believe the police would catch them.
