Statement: Passengers in a car being driven by an underage driver will be ticketed

As she headed home on a Sunday night, junior Melanie Holpert was one of multiple passengers in a car when red and blue lights started flashing behind them.

“We all just didn’t exactly know what we were getting pulled over for, like it could’ve been a license plate thing, or something that wasn’t actually [the driver’s] fault,” said Holpert. “But the cop, when he pulled her over, said that he’d been following her for like three blocks, and she was speeding the whole time.”

According to Holpert, the driver was initially pulled over for a moving violation. However, she received a second ticket when the officer discovered she had not yet had her license for a full year and was carrying more than one passenger.

Illinois law states that teenage drivers who have had their license for under a year are limited to driving one passenger under the age of 20, with the exception of members of the driver’s immediate family.

“I understand [the] law, I guess, because [the passengers] are distractions,” said Holpert. “I just think that it’s a very long time to wait, like a whole year is a little crazy, maybe six months would be okay.”

According to Detective Matthew Szymanski, this law is commonly broken, though statistics are unclear about the number of students that are actually caught by the police.

Holpert said she knew beforehand that none of the passengers in the vehicle would be ticketed.

“If it’s a traffic violation that an officer stops a vehicle for, it’ll come up on their license that [the driver’s] permit is in effect,” said Szymanski. “If they do have more than one passenger, then our officers will only ticket [the driver] for that.”

According to Holpert, many students believe that drivers who have had their license for under a year are rarely ticketed for breaking this law, so they choose not to follow it.

“Any officer has the discretion to write a ticket or not, but it depends how serious offenses are,” said Szymanski. “If it’s reckless driving or a DUI, that’s usually [when we would ticket someone]. But for having too many passengers in a car, the officer has the discretion, but usually we enforce that here.”

Although many students believe otherwise, Szymanski said officers do have the ability to stop drivers who may look under the age of 18, though situations like these are uncommon. Those who are ticketed may then proceed to court, where the judge decides whether the officer had probable cause to make the stop or not in order to determine the ultimate consequence.

“I didn’t really think about [getting pulled over] before,” said Holpert. “But since I have been, I know to be more conscious [about the law] now.”

A survey was conducted in order to get an idea of the student body’s thoughts on common misconceptions about the law. Each article is accompanied by poll results based on a sample size of 100 students. Note that the poll results are in response to the initial statement at the top of each article.