Facts About Teen Driving on the Job
 
  • Fair Labor Standards Act / Hazardous Order 2: Under current law, minors 16 years of age are prohibited from the occupation of motor-vehicle driver and outside helper. Seventeen-year-olds may engage in "occasional and incidental driving" provided the automobile or truck does not exceed 6,000 pounds gross vehicle weight and driving is restricted to daylight hours. Also, the minor is required to have completed a state approved driver education course, have a drivers license, and the vehicle must be equipped with a seat belt or similar device.
  • Enforcement: The U.S. Department of Labor's current interpretation of "occasional and incidental driving" means that youth may spend no more than one third of the work time in any work day and no more than 20 percent of the work time in any work week driving.
  • The U.S. Department of Labor Child Labor Advisory Committee (comprised of business, education, safety, labor and non-profit representatives): In 1992, it recommended that "incidental and occasional driving" be permitted for 17-year-olds only. 16-year-olds should not be permitted to drive on the job under any circumstances. CLAC was appointed by Secretary of Labor Ann McLaughlin and was charged to review and recommend changes in the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The committee met from 1989 - 1992.

Data Shows Driving is Dangerous:

  • The risk of crash involvement per mile driven among drivers 16-19 years old is four times the risk among older drivers. That risk is highest at age 16-17. The crash rate per mile driven is almost three times as high among 16-year-olds as it is among 18-19 year olds. (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
  • Eighty-two percent of 16-year-old drivers involved in fatal crashes while working in 1993 made at least one driving error that led to the accident, and 37 percent of all 16-year-olds in fatal collisions were speeding. (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)
  • 5,805 teenagers died in motor vehicle crashes in 1996. About half of teenage passenger vehicle occupant deaths in 1996 were drivers and about half were passengers. (Analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Transportation Fatality Analysis Reporting System)
  • 16- and 17-year-old drivers are seven times more likely to be involved in crashes than the general driving public, and highway crashes are the number one killer of teenagers. (American Automobile Association, 1996).
  • Motor vehicle crashes were the single largest cause of occupational deaths of 16- and 17-year-old workers in the United States during the decade of 1980-89 and remain a leading cause of death well into this decade. (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)

What's at Stake? TEEN LIVES.

  • Consider this tragedy...A retail clerk in Indiana lost her life on July 20, 1996. Indiana allows minors to obtain drivers licenses one month after their 16th birthday. One month and three days after her 16th birthday, the young clerk who was employed in a gift shop located in a hotel in Evansville, Indiana, lost her life. A customer gave the clerk a hundred dollar bill and the hotel could not make change, so the young woman left the hotel to get change at a nearby shopping center. Her car skidded on a rain-slicked curve and she collided with a pickup truck.

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