When people refer to graduated licensing programs, the state used most often for comparison is Florida. Supporters of these systems say that the number of deaths in Florida went down after implementation. That's because the one thing that gets forgotten is that no matter where the age is set, beginners will always have the highest accident rate. If the age is set at 30, then people will complain that people in the 30-35 age group have the highest accident rate. The solution is more training, not just making teens hold a permit longer.
Many states have lower permit ages and some issue logbooks.
When a person applies for a conditional driver's license, he is not just told to hold his permit for a year and come back and take the test. No, he is required to take classes and drive with licensed instructors who certify in a logbook that the required number of hours has been met. If it takes two weeks or two years to get the hours, once he's qualified, he's qualified. I fail to see the point of restricting night driving of teens. This seems to be just another way of curfewing young people at the state level.