Cheap Vehicle Insurance, IIHS: South Dakota Has Most to Gain from Improving GDL Laws
A new calculator feature produced by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) that attempts to quantify the benefits states could see from developing stricter teen-licensing laws estimates that South Dakota has the most to gain from beefing up new-driver restrictions. According to the IIHS calculator, the rates at which 16- and 17-year-old South Dakotans file collision claims could be cut by 37 percent and the rate at which they are involved in fatal accidents could drop by a whopping 63 percent if they matched their graduated driver licensing laws with the best in the country.
Graduated driver licensing laws—also known as GDLs—implement a tiered licensing system in which the youngest, least-experienced drivers have the greatest restrictions. Over the course of a few years, those restrictions ease up. GDLs usually have the following generic restrictions:
—Minimum permit age
—Minimum permit holding period
—Minimum number of supervised driving hours
—Minimum age of licensure
—Restrictions on driving at night and with young passengers
Beginning South Dakota drivers are required to be only 14 years old to get a permit (the IIHS ideal is 16), do not need to put in any practice hours (ideal is 65), need to be at least 14 years and 3 months old to get a license (ideal is 17 years), and must be off the road by 10 p.m. (ideal is 8 p.m.), according to the IIHS. The license law also has no passenger restrictions for beginning drivers (the ideal is to allow no non-family passengers until full licensure).
According to the calculator, fatal crashes could be cut by nearly half if the state just bumped up its permit and licensing ages to match the IIHS ideal.