You could call it the perfect storm of background research for blogging. Today, from 2:15 to 4:35 p.m., I sat at the Utah Drivers License satellite office in Salt Lake’s Rose Park neighborhood. Sam, my almost 16-year-old, was applying for his drivers learning permit.

While Sam hunkered down in the testing corner to answer 50 questions such as “does smoking marijuana impair your driving ability?” I reached deep inside my mother psyche for patience and waited. Someone, thoughtfully, had left today’s edition of the Deseret Morning News on the hard resin seat beside me. So I made use of my idle time.

Reporters Bob Bernick Jr. and Jennifer Toomer-Cook had a front-page story detailing the introduction of House Bill 322, by Springville Republican Rep. Aaron Tilton. Based on the tragic deaths of his 17-year-old niece and two of her friends last year in a car crash in Utah County, Tilton wants to mandate an addition to state drivers education curricula. As of this entry, Tilton’s bill sits in the House Rules Committee waiting for a committee assignment.

His idea is this: Before passing a drivers ed course and securing a drivers license all teens would be required to research and write a 10-page report on the death of a friend or some other teenager while driving. Tilton explains how powerless he felt after his niece’s death, and how her parents and other family members suffered. How the entire community suffered, really, because how can such a senseless event not take its toll on everyone? Tilton felt compelled to somehow reach other kids who might someday pile into a car and speed along some random highway or careen down some winding canyon.

As I read that story, I watched one teenager after another line up for the written test, then zoomed in on their facial expressions (it was either sublime joy or utter dread) when they learned whether they had passed or failed. Honestly, I did wonder how Tilton’s bill might make a difference in the way they think about driving. Would one more dry school report in the life of a 16-year-old do anything at all?

Then, in the same newspaper, a story described House Bill 217, which would outlaw cell phone use by teens while driving. Taylorsville Republican Rep. Kory Holdaway’s bill makes oh-so much more sense. Trust me. You want to hit a kid where he or she really, truly, deeply lives? Go for the cell phone, the MySpace page or that Nintendo Wii.

Anyway, it’s impossible to fault Tilton’s genuine and heartfelt motives. But it’s hard to buy the notion that just any old effort at teaching safe and defensive driving will help. It’s more sensible to reinforce laws we already have, especially those requiring teenagers to spend a certain number of hours doing day and night driving, or driving only with adults, and limiting the number of friends in the car. As for cell phones, puh-leez, feel free to go after them with the usual legislative zeal.

With teenager No. 2 poised to take to the road in two months, I’m more than a little anxious. But I know a 10-page report would do little or nothing for him. Besides, what kid with a typical scheming, short-cutting teenage mind wouldn’t find the easiest way around the work? Say, typing a 10-page report in 24-point font?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 at 7:40 pm and is filed under All, Politics, Community, Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.