The following editorial appeared Thursday in the Washington Post.

They might make it harder to get home from the prom, but tough driver’s license rules for teenagers can make roads safer. Graduated driver’s license programs – which restrict when and with whom teenagers can get behind the wheel – reduce fatal crashes involving 16-year-olds an average of 11 percent, according to a study released this month by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Enter Sens. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., and John W. Warner, R-Va., who are sponsoring the Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection (STANDUP) Act. The bill, introduced in February, would tie federal highway grants to states’ adoption of these teen license restrictions.

The bill has many common-sense proposals that states should consider. It would require that teen drivers go through a process before getting unfettered access to the roads, including a traditional learner’s permit phase and a conditional license phase. Young motorists with permits and conditional licenses wouldn’t be able to talk on their cell phones, carry more than one passenger under the age of 21 or drive during certain hours of the night.

The Journal of Safety Research reported in 2003 that in 17 states with similar programs, teen drivers had fewer crashes, and we can see why. One rambunctious teenage passenger encouraging a new driver to chase his Formula 1 dreams isn’t ideal, but it’s a lot better than four.

As valuable as these provisions seem to be, it’s a stretch to assert that the federal government should impose teen driving restrictions on the states, which, for the most part, are in a better position to judge the needs of their own motorists. Besides, the bill’s supporters admit that 39 states and the District of Columbia already have many of the rules this bill aims to codify.

A more reasonable solution is to provide incentives. The federal government should offer to pay for the implementation of graduated driver’s license programs in the states that don’t have them, without cutting funding for the states that don’t want them. A mandate hardly seems necessary.