Dear Ga. Parents: unsafe teen drivers nabbed

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has launched a program to send letters to the parents of teen drivers who receive traffic citations or warnings from state troopers. The letters are to include the date and reason the teenager was stopped, whether a citation was issued and traffic safety facts.

The program is meant to increase the dialogue between parents and their teenage children, Perdue said.

“Parents often never know when their child has received a traffic citation until insurance premiums increase, or when their child’s driver’s license has been suspended,” he said.

The program would require no additional staff to implement, Perdue’s campaign said. “The goal of the program is to increase parental involvement during the early years of the teenagers’ driving experience,” said Bill Hitchens, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Safety and colonel of the Georgia State Patrol.