Although the United States Senate had a tough time reaching an agreement on the debt ceiling, senators of both parties agree that stricter teen driving laws need to be implemented.

Recently, a push for $44 million in grants to help states beef up their beginning driver licensing standards hit the floor of the Senate, which received overwhelming support most likely due to the fact that teen drivers are notorious for bad habits behind the wheel.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), teenage motorists are four times more likely than older groups to get into a crash, and car crashes are the leading cause of death for teens in the United States.

Hoping to combat that statistic, the $44 million in grants, to be divvied up over a two-year period, would go to support Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) programs that delay full privileges for teen drivers.

Some of the restrictions on full privileges would include a minimum age of 16 for a learner's permit with a mandatory six-month holding period, 50 hours of supervised driving behind the wheel with 10 of those being at night, banning intermediate/restricted-licensed teens from driving between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. until at least the age of 17 and setting the passenger limit to no more than one person until at least the age of 17.

States like Delaware are already utilizing GDL-like programs, and many lawmakers and auto insurers attribute the sharp decline in teen related driving accidents in that state to the stricter standards.

Using Delaware as a shining example of the success of GDL programs, senators hope to push similar standards nationwide to save not only lives, but costly insurance claims that are a major stain on the economy.

With the likely prospect of stricter standards for young drivers passing the Senate with unanimous support, insurers are confident that policy rates for beginning drivers will fall as they have in Delaware, which is one of the cheapest states for new motorist auto insurance policies.

—AJ Register