Driving After 9 is No Big Deal

For years it has been a law in the State of New York to not allow people under the age of 18 to drive after nine at night.  The state believes that it will be a danger to the teenager driving, and also the other people on the road. The only conclusion I can come up with is that the state does not believe that these drivers have the experience to be driving that late.

But I myself find this theory flawed in many ways.  During the fall and winter the sun sets early and it is usually completely dark out by seven at night. So I do not understand the logic of letting teenage drivers drive in the dark for a certain period of time and then make them stop at a certain time. There have been many times where I have had to come home from a friend’s house or school function because that certain event ended after nine. For instance, most school basketball games end after nine, so if beginner drivers wanted to go to the game, and did not have a ride from their parents, they would not be able to go to the game. So in essence, the driving law is actually preventing teenagers from going to social and school events because of the restriction.

There are some obvious good things that come out of teenagers driving under the age of 18. One of the main positives that have came out of the restriction is that it is stopping a lot of teenagers from driving back from parties.  In the State of New York if you are caught twice driving after nine you will get your license taken away.  This scares a lot of the younger drivers because they do not want to lose their license because they drove after a certain time. So in the end most will just get a ride home from their parents and then there will be no accidents.

This does not mean that there could be different restrictions when it comes to driving at night. Most school and social events are held at night whether they are sporting events, meetings, concerts or special events.  Speaking from personal experience, there has been many times where I could not get a ride from the event, so I would have to miss it because of the law.  So if a school is trying to get their students to attend these events, the law is sometimes preventing this from happening. It is good that our state government cares about the safety of drivers, but that law interferes with the social life of many young drivers. I believe the law should be looked at and possibly changed to a later time.