A recent study, published in last week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, offers a picture of how risky(冒险的) it is to get a lift from a teenage driver. Indeed, a 16-year-old driver with three or more passengers is three times as likely to have a deadly accident as a teenager driving alone, while the risk of death for drivers between 30 and 59 decreases with each additional passenger.
The authors also found that the death rates for teenage drivers increased sharply after 10 p.m., and especially after midnight. With passengers in the car, the driver was even more likely to die in a late-night accident.
Robert Foss, a scientist at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, says the higher death rates for teenage drivers have less to do with “really stupid behavior” than with just a lack of driving experience. “The basic issue,” he says, “is that adults who are responsible for issuing licenses fail to recognize how complex and skilled a task driving is.”
Both he and the author of the study believe that the way to mitigate (使……缓解)the problem is to have states set up so-called graduated licensing systems, in which getting a license is a multistage process. A graduated license requires that a teenager first prove himself capable of driving in the presence of an adult, followed by a period of driving with night or passenger limits, before graduating to full driving licenses.
Graduated licensing systems have reduced teenage driver crashes, according to recent studies. About half of the states now have some sort of graduated licensing system in place, but only 10 of those states have limits on passengers. California is the strictest, with a new driver under 20 forbidden to carry any passenger (without the presence of an adult over 25) for the first six months.
小题1:Which of the following situations can we infer is most dangerous according to the passage?
A．A teenager driving after midnight with passengers in the car.
B．Adults giving a lift to teenagers on the highway after 10 p.m.
C．Adults driving with three or more teenage passengers late at night.
D．A teenager getting a lift from a stranger on the highway at midnight.小题2:According to Robert Foss, the high death rate of teenage drivers is mainly because of _______.
A．their frequent driving at night
B．their improper ways of driving
C．their driving with passengers
D．their lack of driving experience小题3:According to Paragraph 3, which of the following statements is TRUE?
A．The licensing departments are partly responsible for teenagers' driving accidents.
B．Driving is too complex a skill for teenagers to learn.
C．Teenagers should be forbidden to apply to take driving lessons.
D．Teenagers should spend more time learning to drive.小题4:A suggested measure to be taken to reduce teenagers' driving accidents is that_______.
A．driving in the presence of an adult should be made a rule
B．the licensing system should be improved
C．they should not be allowed to drive after 10 p.m.
D．they should be forbidden to take on passengers
