N.J. high court upholds sticker requirement for young drivers

New Jersey’s Supreme Court has upheld Kyleigh’s Law, which requires teen drivers to display a sticker on their license plates to indicate they are driving with a restricted license.

The ruling keeps in place mandates that young drivers display removable, highly visible reflective stickers on their plates. The decals are supposed to make it easier for police to enforce curfews and limits on the number of passengers for those driving with graduated licenses.

 

Rutgers-Camden Law professor Robert Williams, an authority on the New Jersey Constitution, says the case was a test of just how far the state Legislature can go in making laws.

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“Essentially, what the court was doing in this case was showing deference to the policy choice made by the Legislature that use of these kind of decals would provide more safety that it would provide problems,” Williams said.

Williams says law was challenged on the basis that young drivers’ rights were infringed upon by having to display the sticker.

“What the challengers argued was that there is a federal statute that guarantees privacy when it comes driver’s license information and that somehow superseded the state law,” Williams said. “The New Jersey Supreme Court said that was not the case.”

The decal law does not apply to out-of-state teen drivers while they are in New Jersey.

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