MINNEAPOLIS, Updated 10:51 a.m. CST February 9, 2007 -- The MMA Board of Trustees in January voted in favor of Minnesota establishing a graduated drivers license for teens that would restrict nighttime driving and the number of teens allowed in vehicle at one time.

“The need for this was pretty obvious based on the morbidity and mortality data of crashes and the effectiveness of graduated programs in other states,” said Edward Ehlinger, M.D., and chair of the public health committee.

The board vote on Saturday was prompted by Resolution 314 (R 314), which the 2006 MMA House of Delegates referred to the board in September.

R 314 called for the Legislature to pass a graduated license program that would create an intermediate license for teens, with the goal of giving teens time to gain driving experience under lower risk conditions.

Minnesota is only one of five states that do not have a graduated license program, that requires teens to have an intermediary driver’s license before getting their adult license.

The board voted in favor of the teen driving restrictions because the evidence shows they would reduce traffic crashes, which are the leading cause of death for Minnesota’s 15- to 17-year olds. From 1999 to 2003, 236 teens died in car crashes in Minnesota.

The public health committee that studied the issue cited a 2000 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found effective restrictions for teens included a nighttime driving restriction and a passenger restriction. The board did not specify a driving curfew time for teens, though 11 p.m. was proposed in the original resolution, nor the number of teens allowable in a car.

The risk of death for a 16-year-old increases the more teens they have in the car. The death rate is nearly three times higher for a teen driving with three passengers.

“This is one of those tradeoffs between lives and convenience, and the first thing we want to do is make sure these adolescents get through their teen years,” Ehlinger said.

R 314 had also called for teens to receive a more rigorous driver’s test, including a crash avoidance test, but the study committee couldn’t find any evidence that supported this approach.