Driving bill stems from loss of niece
For Rep. Aaron Tilton, R-Springville, his newly introduced HB322 is an act of love with a tinge of desperation: "I hope we can have some lasting impact on teenage drivers. I hope."
His niece was a passenger and one of three students killed in a crash last year at the mouth of Hobble Creek Canyon, just a few blocks from Tilton's house.
"At the funeral, my brother and sister-in-law were telling each kid, 'Please, please drive carefully,"' says Tilton. And he began to ponder about what he could do in the Legislature to try to keep that feeling, that awareness, going.
He struck on a type of "scared straight" approach to teen drivers — make an impact, even if only in a frightening way.
"I drove crazy sometimes as a teenager. I wrecked my car when I was 18, just lucky no one was seriously hurt," says Tilton.
His bill would require as part of a public school's driver education curriculum that each student write a 10-page paper about another teen killed in a car wreck. In many cases, he believes, the kids will end up writing about the accident of someone either they or their friends knew — a family like the Tiltons who have lost a child. Schools or school districts also would have to keep a database of youths killed in motor-vehicle crashes to assist students in their research.
In 2005, 35 children were killed in motor vehicle crashes, the Utah Department of Public Safety reports. That's down two from the year before, and way down from the 59 children killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2003.
About one in six fatal crashes in Utah involved a Utah teenage driver in 2004, the department reports. Teenage drivers also represented less than 8 percent of the licensed drivers in Utah but were involved in more than 27 percent of crashes in the same year.
Some Granite schools attempt to alert teens to such statistics, district drivers education curriculum specialist Paul Jeppesen said. Some teachers have students track information on teen-driver accidents, including clipping news articles, as part of their classes.
"A 10-page report, I think that's a little excessive," Jeppesen said. "But I think the concept is OK.
Alpine School District's administrator over high schools and adult education has not read the bill, but the idea raises some questions for the sponsor.
"I would support anything that would help reduce accidents in teenage driving," Sam Jarman said. "And if this bill has been researched and there is that data that would show this kind of (action) would help students to make better choices in their driving, then I would support it."
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