Thursday, March 25, 2010

"Kyleigh's Law"

TRENTON — New Jersey will soon be the first state to alert police when a young driver is behind the wheel.

The Motor Vehicles Commission is unveiling red decals that motorists under the age of 21 must display on their license plates.
The reflective red stickers will help police identify drivers in order to enforce restrictions on passenger limits and 11 p.m. curfews.

The stickers, which take effect May 1, are removable and will cost $4.

Attorney General Paula Dow and MVC officials will announce the implementation of "Kyleigh's Law" at an MVC office in Freehold Wednesday.

Kyleigh D'Alessio was a 16-year-old central New Jersey high school student who was killed in a vehicle driven by another teen in 2006.

Will this help to reduce teen accidents behind the wheel?

Friday, March 12, 2010

Young Texas Drivers to Complete Class Before Licensure

A new law which went into effect March 1st requires drivers aged 18-24 to complete an approved driver education course. They must submit their certificate proving they successfully completed the course, which must be a course approved by the Texas Education Agency.

Successful completion of the course allows the license applicant to bypass the written highway signs and traffic laws test, but still must pass the driving skills exam.

Drivers aged 15 to 17 are not affected by this new law since they are still required to complete a driver's education class to be licensed.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

TIWI, Creating Bad Habits?

You remember TIWI? The friendly teen driver GPS device that speaks to your teen telling them to slow down, that they've made a hard brake or hard acceleration (among other things). Read our post on TIWI from late January.

Well, TIWI has made it back in the local public spotlight with King 5 news. TIWI does most things that the other teen driver GPS devices do (tracking and reporting back to the parent with a text message or e-mail), but again, TIWI has set itself apart with a vocal alert which will continue until the teen has followed direction-- such as slowing down.

But is it this very vocal alert that might create a reliance on driving habits? For example, if 17-year-old Kayla is driving mindlessly, slowly but surely reaching speeds upwards of 80 miles per hour, TIWI will alert her to slow down when she goes 10 MPH over the speed limit! So in theory, Kayla will slow down. But take TIWI away, who is going to tell her to slow down?