For Teens Eyes Only...

How to work with everyone to get your drivers license with a minimum of hassle is what the following is all about. So read everything carefully, we have your best interest at heart.

They want to drive - right now! - but under a new law, 16- and 17-year-olds have to grow into that privilege

By Martin J. Waters, Record-Journal staff

It was late at night, on a two-lane road crowded with pedestrians, and a 16-year-old girl who had received her driver's license one week earlier was driving a 5,500-pound sports-utility vehicle, with three other children along for the ride.

Just for a moment, Marcy A. Jarzabek steered slightly to the right as she drove south on Route 17 in Durham. That turn of the wheel killed 15-year-old Jason Gelinas of Meriden. Three friends walking with him after visiting the Durham Fair were injured, one severely.

Jarzabek, who was carrying two younger siblings and a friend in a 1997 GMC Suburban, told police she had trouble seeing out the windshield, which had fogged up.

She had been trying to adjust the defogger controls when she struck the pedestrians at about 10 minutes before midnight on a Saturday night in September of 2002. She had received her driver's license at age 16 years, 4 months - the earliest age allowed in Connecticut.

The death of Gelinas became a rallying point for advocates of imposing more restrictions on young teen-age drivers in Connecticut.

Even with a new law that went into effect, however, the state remains far behind the curve of a nationwide trend toward passenger restrictions and nighttime curfews for young drivers, along with big increases in required hours of behind-the-wheel training.

Last year the General Assembly enacted a law imposing restrictions on carrying of passengers by drivers under 18 during the first six months they are licensed. But it did nothing on the other two aspects of what's become known as graduated licensing: nighttime restrictions and more hours of practice driving.

Proponents of the new law cite nationwide statistics showing that new drivers are far more likely to have accidents when they are distracted by friends riding with them. One passenger doubles the accident risk and two or more make the chance of an accident five times higher, according to the insurance group. Overall, 16- and 17-year-olds are involved in twice as many accidents per miles driven as are 18-year-olds.

But many teenagers are voicing opposition to the law - in some cases, all-out disdain for it.

"It's stupid. I think kids are going to do it anyhow," said 16-year-old Tisha Ventura of Wallingford, who suggested a petition campaign asking for the law to be repealed. She was attending a class at ABC Driving Education in downtown Wallingford.

"I would like to be able to drive my friends to school," said Katelyn Quinto, who also lives in Wallingford. "We've waited long enough," said Wallingford resident Mark Esposito.

Among two dozen 16-year-olds gathered for the class, only one had anything positive to say about the law. "It's a good law because it protects a lot of people," said Jared Marmitt of Meriden.

Gail DeBaise, owner of the driving school, said that sample was representative.

"They all think it's a bummer," she said. "The average parent is very happy. Their kids can drive on their own. So, it's a passenger law. The passenger law is going to be a very good law."

State Sen. Biagio Ciotto, D-Wethersfield, co-chairman of the legislature's Transportation Committee and long-time backer of graduated licensing, views the law as a minimal step. He would like teenagers to find out about the issues before criticizing the changes.

"These laws are not being passed to punish you. They're being passed because we love you. This law will save lives," he said.

State Rep. David A. Scribner, R-Brookfield and a champion of the new law, said, "It's really more about lack of experience than it is about age ... We're simply trying to give them a greater amount of time to get experience behind the wheel in risk-free situations.

For three years, Scribner has been unsuccessful in gaining approval a nighttime curfew or a requirement for more behind-the-wheel driver education. Federal highway safety officials recommend that states adopt curfews that cover at least 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and require at least four times as many on-the-road driver-training hours as Connecticut requires.

Opposition to increasing the hours of practice driving in Connecticut included some lobbying by private driver-education schools. They feared that if course fees were increased to cover the expense of more one-on-one instruction, fewer teenagers would enroll, Scribner said. Students in driver-education courses must receive eight hours.

Parents of other teenagers must certify to the state that they provided at least 25 hours of classroom instruction and eight hours on the road. Even if they do not take a regular driver-education course, all teenagers must attend a five-hour course on safety and alcohol and drug awareness.
A word which sends chills down many adult’s spines. Once upon a time, the word just meant a person of the age 13-19. But now, teenagers are labeled as hooligans, vandilizers and all-over bad people. But is this stereotype really fair? Are teenagers truly as bad as adults describe them?

Teenagers are people too. We see the horrific images on the news- images of war and poverty and global injustice. And you know what? You can sit at home and cry over the terrible things in this world, but you can also go to bed knowing that none of it will ever affect you.

But We Can't...We are Teenagers.

You go to bed knowing that one day, the world will be in your hands. On day, when all of the current adults are dead and gone, you will have to face up to a ruined, polluted and deadly world.

And who is responsible for the ruins and the pollution and the deadliness? It isn't teenagers that create the problems in the world, much as some folk would like to think so. You can protest and scream and cry until we have no fight or lungs or tears left inside of you...but....

But No One Listens to Us!

Why? Because as teenagers, many people consider you deadly, rough little hooligans who don't deserve to have a say in what happens to the world. But remember this- the future is in your hands. You are teenagers- hear you cry...loud and clear!

Every day, you have to make important decisions. It is very hard to make them when you are a teenager, because you are not children, for whom the world is so simple, and not yet adults, who have life experience. During this transitional period, as a teenagers are you are very changeable; full of self-criticism, have frequent changes of mood, and are generally dissatisfied with your appearance. As a Teenager, you are also easily influenced by others. And just in this period, a great number of teenagers begin to smoke, communicate with different groups and etc. But you should love yourself, in order to find the right way in life and place in society. You should not only follow your wishes, but also fulfill all your duties in time and control yourself. You shouldn't be illiterate. Ignorance makes unemployment and life pursuits very difficult. So, as a responsible person, you should respect yourself and other people. And to respect yourself means to wish yourself happiness and try to make your dreams come true, everyday, in every way.

Parents usually do what they think is the right thing to do. The result they intend for you is usually good but they just don’t always get to you in the right way. When you're little that is the time they try to shape you and bring you up religiously and when the pen starts writing it’s us who have to do things. So the message to parents, “Please just advise me and guide me but don’t push or pull me to do things.”
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