On May 1, a new law goes into effect in New Jersey that requires provisional drivers under 21 to put a red sticker on their license plate. The law, nicknamed Kyleigh’s Law, after Kyleigh D’Alessio who died in a car accident in 2006, is purported to make it easier for the police to enforce graduated driver’s license provisions on new drivers. The law is designed to give the police probable cause to pull over vehicles displaying the red sticker. The law also includes changes to New Jersey’s already fairly strict requirements for young people with provisional driver’s licenses, stopping individuals under 21 from driving past 11 pm instead of midnight and stopping drivers from using all cell phones (whether hands free or not). This law also increases restrictions on the passengers a young driver can have in the car. This is the first state in the country to attempt to require new, young drivers display a special tag or notice on their car identifying them as such.

This law raises a number of important questions, some of which are rather unsettling. First of all, why are only new drivers under 21 required to display this sticker? No evidence exists that shows new drivers over 21 are safer than other new drivers. If this law were about safety then surely all new drivers should have the same restrictions and have the same red sticker on the back of their car. Proponents of this law cite Canada which has a similar identification for new drivers, but their law applies to all new drivers, not just new drivers under 21. The law is similar in Europe where new drivers, of any age, have to display some special marking. There is zero justification for singling out new, young drivers. None.

The plan was for the sticker to put a bullseye on the back of young people’s cars making them easier to pull over. The unsettling question we need to ask, is who else out there would like to easily identify young people driving alone? Our mind can conjure up many stalkers, criminals and sexual predators who could use this marking system to their advantage. Do we really want to put such a target on the cars of our youth?

New Jersey attorney, Gregg Trautmann, filed suit against the law hoping to stop it going into effect due to its safety concerns. His case lost the first round but he is working on an appeal.
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