It will now take at least six months longer for Virginia teen-agers to be able to drive, courtesy of a bill Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) signed into law yesterday.
House Bill 2554 and its companion Senate Bill 1329 will force many new regulations on the Commonwealth's teen-age drivers.
The new law will increase the age to apply for a learner's permit from 15 years to 15 1/2 and increase the mandatory time teens under 18 must have a learner's permit from six to nine months.
Teens under 18 will not be able to drive between midnight and 4 a.m. or have more than three teens in the car.
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"Virginia's young drivers will also gain valuable driving experiences by lengthening practice time to hone their driving skills," Gilmore said in a statement released yesterday.
The new bill will give teen drivers "more experience" and "more practice time to drive around with parents," said YooRee Oh, Gilmore's assistant press secretary.
Del. Jay O'Brien (R-Clifton), the chief patron of the House Bill, cited a "47 percent jump in teen fatalities in the past year" in traffic-related accidents as the reason he proposed the bill. We're looking toward the "long haul" in making sure that the teen-agers are good drivers, O'Brien said.
Del. Mitch Van Yahres (D-Charlottesville) offers a different viewpoint.
"I think that it's relatively superficial," Van Yahres said. He pointed out the need to make seatbelts mandatory as the most important step to help save teen-agers; however, legislators dropped mandatory seatbelts from the bill.
"Whether six more months of experience is going to do much is unsure," Van Yahres said.
First-year College student Jen Habicht said she does not support the bill.
"I don't think it's right to make them wait," Habicht said. "It comes down to if the parents are going to enforce these laws."
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