Secretary of State Jesse White has reaffirmed his opposition to raising the driving age in Illinois.

On Tuesday the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced it supports raising the driving age nationwide to 17 or 18.

White emphasized the answer to reducing teen fatal crashes lies not with raising the driving age but on working to better prepare young, novice drivers, regardless of their age, and increasing parental involvement.

"This is why my office initiated a new teen driver safety law, effective Jan. 1, 2008, that gives Illinois one of the strongest graduated driver licensing programs in the nation," White said in a news release. "The new law better prepares teen drivers by tripling the length of the permit phase, increasing parental involvement, limiting in-car distractions and strengthening penalties."

Early results of the new law are encouraging. In the first seven months since it took effect, teen crash fatalities have declined by 47 percent, according to the release, resulting in 44 fewer teen deaths on Illinois roads in 2008 when compared to the first seven months in 2007.

White's office has developed a parent-teen driving guidebook to help parents observe and instruct their teen drivers during the nine-month permit phase.

The 32-page book offers parents a blueprint to follow when accompanying their teen as they log the required 50 hours of practice driving. The books, which also contain a voluntary parent-teen contract, are provided to parents who have teens enrolled in driver education class. For more information, visit, http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com.