A step too far

It’s a scene that plays out every day. Your teen hops into a vehicle with their friends to head off to school or, say, return home from work. Or perhaps it’s your son or daughter who picks up their friends to go to a hockey game, band practice, fast food joint, or the movies across the river.
Harmless, right? Yet if new legislation proposed yesterday by the Ontario government is passed, that will be illegal.
Limiting drivers aged 16-19 to having just one teen passenger in the vehicle is among the changes aimed at revamping the Graduated Licensing System for new drivers that’s been in place in Ontario for 14 years.
The logic behind the move, one supposes, is that the more teens there are in a vehicle, the more likely the driver is to show off or be “egged” on to be more daring, or perhaps simply be more distracted. But while all that is possible, imposing a blanket restriction that no longer allows more than two teens to drive together to the mall or the movies or school is impractical and downright draconian.
Some of the changes proposed yesterday do make sense, including a zero blood-alcohol limit for all drivers aged 21 and under, escalating penalties for young drivers who speed, and an even longer period of time (up to 36 months) for drivers to get their full licence.
On the other hand, how can we extol the virtues of car-pooling if only two teens can drive in the same vehicle to the same destination? How do we preach about the importance of designated drivers when a teen can only take one friend at a time home after a party?
There already are laws in place to combat dangerous driving and drunk driving. It’s illegal to carry more passengers in a vehicle than there are seatbelts. To now restrict teen drivers to just one teen passenger is a step too far.