Letter to Senator Singer, - Friday, October 5 2007

We have been following the recent tragedies in Ocean County and have felt so saddened and helpless. We pray everyday that the Graduated Driver License program will become a Federal Law, but until that happens each State is left on it’s own. Our thoughts on how Law Enforcement personnel can quickly identify provisional drivers have been our focus of late. Our suggestions are as follows: Upon receiving a driver’s permit each new driver will, at an additional cost, receive 4 reflective decals with the letter “P” to be placed on the windshield (above the inspection decal) and one on the back window in the lower left hand corner. The new driver will be able to drive either of 2 cars, thereby limiting any family hardships. The police will be able to identify a provisional driver and, if more than the required amount of passengers are in the vehicle, the police will be able to stop the vehicle without further reason. If a new driver is stopped and is not driving a “P” marked vehicle, then a fine will be issued to the driver and to the owner of the vehicle. If the new driver has a second offence then, his or her license will be suspended for a suggested time. An increase to the fines for both driver and owner may be applied. This is just one of our ideas that we thought that we would share with you. Maybe by some small miracle you can make it a reality. After all, you did have the GDL signed into law. We did mention this to a Law Enforcement Officer on the Traffic Safety Department of Jackson. We have talked at length so we are aware that identifying vehicles driven by a provisional driver is very difficult and sensitive due to privacy laws, profiling, and other issues. Maybe New Jersey can be an example for the rest of the country. -- Posted by barbar