Should Georgia teen drivers sport warning magnets?

Susie Kessler couldn’t care less if she embarrasses her 16-year-old son, Donne, at least when it comes to his driving. Donne has to drive around with a big magnet on the back of his car that reads “Caution — Newly Licensed.” And if Kessler has her way, your teen driver is going to be embarrassed too. Through the nonprofit she founded, Caution and Courtesy Driver Alliance, the Kennesaw mom has sold about 15,000 of those magnets across the country. Now, working with a Georgia state senator inspired by her campaign, she plans to support a potential bill next session that would mandate use of such “Caution” magnets by all young drivers. Here, Kessler talks about driving, responsibility and the line between smothering and good parenting.

Enlarge this image

Phil Skinner /pskinner@ajc.com

Q: Did you start this campaign because one of your kids wrecked the family car or something?

A: No. We lived in Ohio when my other children were learning to drive. And when we moved to Georgia, oh, the traffic. I think everyone would agree, Georgia drivers are pretty crazy. I was so worried about Donne learning how to drive with all this traffic. So I got started thinking, what can I do to keep him safe? I didn’t know at the time that car accidents were the No. 1 killer of teens.

Q: What kind of driver are you?

A: I was a nervous driver with the traffic, and I thought, how am I going to let this kid get on the highway? I’ve got to do something about this. … I’ve got to put something on the car that lets everybody know that he’s just learning how to drive. So [with a friend] we worked on a design. I wanted to have something positive, so instead of saying “New Driver,” or something that the child would be embarrassed about, we said “Newly Licensed.”

Q: Sounds like you’re splitting hairs. I would think that, for a teen, any sort of sticker like that, no matter what it reads, is not hip.

A: (Laughs). But if we can pass this as law, and every kid has it [a sticker], they won’t be embarrassed by it anymore. It’ll be the law.

Q: Can’t the kid just pull the magnet or decal off the car the minute they round the corner away from the house?

A: We’ve got a window decal as well. So if they pull it off, they can’t put it back on. But if it’s law and they get caught, it’ll be a hefty fine.

Q: You say you’re doing this to keep kids safe. But Atlanta comes up pretty high on road rage surveys and polls. Couldn’t these decals and magnets make these kids targets for nut cases out there on the road?

A: I don’t think so. When people see a teen driver, they don’t want to hit the kid, but they also don’t want the kid to hit them. We’ve been doing these decals now for four years, so we’ve gotten the feedback from parents who say, “Before we got the magnet, people were honking at us. Now, people are staying back.” It’s just common sense.

There are 250,000 new permit drivers in Georgia every year. Don’t you want to know who they are? I do.

Q: I’ve seen a lot of parents out there driving who don’t signal when they change lanes or turn, who roll through stop signs. Don’t kids learn some of these habits from their parents when they learn to drive, no matter if the kids took a driver’s education course?

A: (Laughs) What do you think? You have to have 40 hours of driving time with your parent [or an adult before you can get your unrestricted driver’s license]. I talk to the state licensing people that actually give these kids the test … and I’ve asked them how many of these kids have really had 40 hours with parents. And they’ll tell you [some of the kids] don’t know how to turn the lights on in the car. It’s scary. Even if they do the minimum of 40 hours, that’s nothing.

That’s nothing to take a machine like that out on the road. It’s like giving your kid a gun with no instruction.

Q: Experts say it’s not that a kid doesn’t know the rules of the road, but it’s just that they’re teenagers and, at that stage of development, they’re excited and all over the place and driving fast is thrilling to them. That’s hard for a sticker to win against.

A: I’ll tell you an aside. When I was in high school, they passed a seat belt law. I remember telling my mother, “What fool made up that rule? This is going to wrinkle my clothes!” Well here I am now, trying to pass legislation. Kids, they’re not looking out for their own safety. That’s up to the parents.

Q: Are you being overprotective?

A: What I’m trying to do is save those parents from getting a call from the police in the middle of the night saying, “Can you come to the hospital? Your child’s been in a crash.”

Q: Which are you more worried about when it comes to teens, sex, drugs or driving?

A: As parents of teenagers, we worry about everything. But driving is the No. 1 killer.

Q: Georgia doesn’t like a lot of regulation, and passing legislation around teen driving has been difficult. Do you think legislation surrounding this would actually stand a chance of passing?

A: I do because we have so much support from high school principals, police chiefs, people from SADD, people from MADD. We’re going to do our best. All I’m trying to do is save these kids from crashing.

Q: Your son Donne is 16 now. What does he think of all this?

A: He’s like, “Oh man, all my life all I wanted to do is drive. Why does she have to take on this? Couldn’t she be feeding the homeless?”