AAA Urging Lawmakers to Make Roads More Safe

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – It is Teen Driver Safety Week and AAA is speaking out about an epidemic on the roadways.

House Bill 293 proposes to provide teens with more experience on the roadways before receiving their licence. Kimberly Schwind, AAA Spokesperson, said this is something that impacts everyone in different ways.

“Car crashes remain to be the leading cause of death for teens and it impacts everybody because about two thirds of those injured or kills and crashes involving teen drivers is someone other than the teen driver. So it’s something that impacts all of us on the roadways and it’s a real epidemic,” Schwind said.

The Bill will include a year long learner’s permit period so that they can experience driving in all seasons and by starting the nighttime driving protections for newly licensed teens at 10 p.m. instead of midnight. Schwind said we continue to see teens causing crashes, injuries and deaths on the roads because of lack of experience.

“This is something AAA has really been working on for several years. Back in 2016 AAA organized the Ohio Graduated Driver Licencing Coalition and this is a broad based coalition with about 50 organizations,” Schwind said. “We have lots of supporters.”

She said we really need to make a change to keep everybody safe. This bill has no opponents and after AAA spoke with both parents and teens they received full support.