An American teenager earns a driver’s license in three stages. First comes a learner’s permit for supervised practice. Then comes an intermediate license, with limits. The federal safety agency’s benchmark requires a licensed adult in the car from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. and allows “not more than one teenage passenger for the first 12 months.” Only then comes the full license.
By 2012 all 50 states and the District of Columbia had a three-stage system. The first multistage systems in the United States were enacted in 1996 and 1997.