Spurred by the determination to do something, anything, that might stem the grim tide of deadly teen crashes, the General Assembly is making a few changes in North Carolina's graduated drivers license system.

I'll be writing more about this, and I'd like to hear from teen drivers. Tell me what you like or don't like about graduated licensing, and how it is working out or has worked out for you. Please email me or call 919-829-4527. Don't forget to leave your full name -- we don't quote anonymous folks -- and your contact information, so I call call you Monday.

North Carolina law allows you at age 18 to get your license just by passing the test. If you want to drive when you're 15, 16 or 17, you have to take driver's education class and get lots of practice driving with restrictions and with the front-seat supervision of a parent or other qualified adult.

The biggest change in SB 636, which is about to become law, is a new requirement that young drivers must log at least 60 hours of parent-supervised driving over several months, in order to move up from learner's permit to the limited provisional license. Parents have to sign the logs, and there are penalties for falsifying them.