Kyleigh's Law: More Harm than Good?

Last weekend, three of my friends piled into the back of my Pontiac for a trip to Veneto's. "Hey!" one of them shouted. "What is this, Sandra breaking the law?"

I laughed and shook my head, explaining that since I've had a full driver's license since January, it is perfectly legal for me to drive with three passengers.

"Wow," another friend declared. "Amazing. No one ever drives legally any more."

Sadly, this grim declaration has become increasingly true in the last few months. On May 1, new driving restrictions under the Graduated Driver's License (GDL) Law and Kyleigh's Law went into effect. They require all "probational" drivers—usually seventeen-year-olds—to display red stickers on their license plates, and forbid them from driving after 11 p.m. or with more than one person, unless all the passengers are family members.

Theoretically, the law sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, in practice, it has been less than effective. In fact, I think Kyleigh's Law does more harm than good, at least for the teens I know in Basking Ridge.

To many seventeen-year-olds, the new driving restrictions seem overly repressive. In summer, the season of graduation parties and late-night walks, an 11:00 curfew and passenger limit appear ridiculous to students who will be heading  to college in just a few months.

So, probational drivers have chosen to simply ignore the regulations. Instead of heading home early, seventeen-year-olds just remove their red stickers when they know they will be driving late at night. Many leave their stickers off the car entirely. In fact, some parents will not even allow their children to drive with red stickers on their cars, fearing the increased attention of aggressive drivers or pedophiles.

Essentially, young drivers and their parents alike shirk Kyleigh's Law on every turn. While driving a car with red stickers on the license plate might cause a few drivers to be more forgiving and kinder on the road in the daytime, the real intention of the stickers is to alert police and other drivers to a potentially dangerous situation. Removing the stickers before such a situation renders them almost completely useless.

I must admit that during my seventeenth year, I might have broken the rules of my provisional license once or twice. Perhaps I gave both my friend and her sister a ride to school, or answered my phone in the car, or left for home after midnight—but only once or twice. More importantly, every time I broke the law, I felt horribly guilty about it. I promised myself that I would never disobey my GDL restrictions again. Today, I still have an ingrained sense of guilt—and caution—whenever I drive multiple people or set out late at night.

The situation for this year's seventeen-year-olds, however, is completely different. For them, "breaking the law" has become necessary, accepted, even mundane. As my friend pointed out from the backseat of my car, "no one actually drives legally any more."

But like a gateway drug, driving with two passengers may lead to more extreme, and much more important, infringements of the law. After all, once you're already driving illegally simply by leaving a party at 12:30 a.m., what difference do a couple of beers make? In my opinion, Kyleigh's Law is detrimental because it has made breaking the law into a normal and socially acceptable practice.

Perhaps the problem with the new driving restrictions is enforcement and not intention. But no one wants police officers to spend their time stopping every young driver to check for a probational license.  In fact, there is absolutely no efficient way to ensure that probationally licensed drivers display their red stickers.

New Jersey legislators are considering a repeal of Kyleigh's Law because of concerns about sex offenders targeting red-stickered seventeen year olds in their cars. I think that much more important is the fact that the unrealistic GDL restrictions have made breaking the law simple, socially acceptable, and even endorsed by peers and parents alike.

Of course, a few driving violations won't turn a Basking Ridge teenager into a hardened criminal overnight—but Kyleigh's Law has become an object of teenage mockery and scorn, instead of respect. The law needs to be reconsidered or repealed, for the safety of Basking Ridge's teenagers, all of New Jersey's young drivers, and our entire state.