Last night, as I was hang­ing out with a group of par­ents who all had new 17 year old dri­vers, the dis­cus­sion of the infa­mous “Red Decal” came up. The par­ents were against the decals and stated they did not have their chil­dren put them on their vehi­cles because they felt it would attract atten­tion from law enforce­ment and poten­tial preda­tors. They also were upset about the time restric­tions and pas­sen­ger lim­its and felt frus­trated by the state putting these new laws in place.

When a par­ent tells me that they don’t under­stand the need for these restrictions—I tell them to be grate­ful they don’t under­stand the pain of los­ing a child or hav­ing them severely injured in a car crash. As the con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­ued, I sup­plied them with sim­ple facts—about the inex­pe­ri­ence of new dri­vers and how that con­tributes to a teen crash­ing in New Jer­sey every 10 min­utes, how with each addi­tional pas­sen­ger in a teen’s car, the risk of a teen crash increases dra­mat­i­cally, and how many crashes occur after 11 pm, which is why the time restric­tion was put in place.

These laws and restric­tions were deter­mined based on sta­tis­tics and facts by experts in the field of traf­fic safety to help keep chil­dren, YOUR chil­dren safe. My friends left that evening with a bet­ter under­stand­ing and armed with the power to help keep their teens safe. Please take the time to learn the facts to keep your teen safe at www.NJteenDriving.com