43 percent of all drivers in the US get into car accidents during their first year of driving; 37 percent of all drivers get into car accidents during their second year of driving.

Fifteen to 20 year olds make up 6.7 percent of the total driving population, but are involved in 20 percent of all crashes and 14 percent of motor vehicle deaths.

If airline pilots had comparable statistics, the FAA would bring the entire airline system to an immediate, grinding halt. They would look at the training system in place and they would fix it. Why aren’t the same standards applied to first-time drivers? Is the welfare of our youth not important?

The current system for educating new drivers fails to focus on the core of the problem -- the problem that is correctly identified by the Department of Transportation as, "insufficient experience and inadequate skill." We accept minimal requirements for licensing and training which leads to the same terrible statistics year after year.

Our system today is such that you read a booklet on state driving laws, maybe take a driver’s education course and are expected to cope with extremely dangerous roads, assuming you don’t quickly become a statistic. Yet training that effectively addresses accident avoidance and defensive driving appears nowhere in the equation. Daily tragedies are allowed to continue.

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