House leaders lack feeling

By: Bob Sigman, Opinion Page Editor

Once again a move for more restrictive teenage driver’s licenses has reached a dead end in the Legislature. Does the leadership of the Kansas House, which refused to allow the measure to be debated, realize its inaction is equated to more young people being mangled and killed in motor vehicle accidents?

“I feel devastated,” said Rep. Ronnie Metsker, R-Overland Park, a supporter of more stringent limitations, in discussing the Legislature’s failure to correct a lethal situation.

Metsker, a member of the House Transportation Committee, which drafted the legislation, pointed to the recent death of a 16-year-old driver in a traffic mishap in Johnson County. Had the night-time provisions of the pending legislation been in place, Metsker observed in an interview, it would have been illegal for the young man to have been driving around 4 a.m., the time of the fatality.

Metsker said there were marked differences in the bill approved by the Senate and the stalled measure in the lower chamber, but he said he and others would have been willing to try to work out a compromise.

The Legislature wrapped up its regular session April 4. It will return for a veto, or wrap-up session April 30, but is not expected to take up the bill.

What on the agenda would have a higher priority than saving young lives in motor vehicle wrecks?

The facts about teenage carnage on the roads could not have been missed by the House leadership. Numerous legislative hearings have been held on the teenage sections of the state’s licensing law over the years. Reform legislation has been sponsored without success in previous sessions and last year a special interim committee studied the issue. Nothing seems to persuade many legislators.

State Secretary of Transportation Deb Miller told the interim committee in September that car crashes were the leading cause of death, at 49 percent, of Kansans ages 16 to 20 between 2001 and 2005. That is 60 percent higher than the national average, she added

Other statistics are as fearsome. Six percent of drivers in Kansas are teenagers, but they are in 20 percent of the car accidents. That is not all. Young drivers are especially vulnerable from dark to dawn.

Metsker noted that both houses prohibited 16-year-olds from driving at night. The Senate hours were from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., the House’s from midnight to 5 a.m.

Overall, the Senate proposal was much more restrictive. The Senate, for example, did not allow 14-year-olds to have a license. The House would let them drive on a learner’s permit with no cell phone and an adult in the front seat. Both left the youth farming-related driving statute in effect.

Frankly, the House leadership appears heartless, unconnected to a harsh reality. These legislators have the authority to act to save lives, not only of young people but of others who have the misfortune to get in their way. The leaders suffer from a callousness that is impossible to understand or tolerate.

Contact Bob Sigman at 385-6034 or e-mail bsigman@sunpublications.com.