On Jan. 1, 2025, 519 bills were passed into law. Among the 519 bills passed, laws about cell phones while driving, minimum wage increase, and voter registration age are the most likely to affect teens in Colorado.
The new law about holding cell phones while driving, SB24-065, restricts drivers from holding their phone while driving to prevent accidents.
Leianna Warren(11), a student that drives to school at MSHS, believes that many teens are addicted to their phones, so this law may be hard for many teens to follow.
“I think there’s so many teens that are addicted to their phones, and even with my parents, they have stuff to set up their phones so they can still use it while they’re driving,” Warren said.
Warren believes that the law would increase the safety of teen drivers because of more attention given to traffic instead of their phones.
“I think it would make people pay more attention. I think it’s a pretty important law, because it’ll help prevent car crashes,” Warren said.
The law HB25-1001, changed the minimum wage in Colorado from $14.42 to $14.81. This was changed so that minimum wage keeps up with inflation.
Alice Melvin(11) a student with a job at MSHS, says the increase would encourage teens to work more so they can do more activities outside of school that would cost money.
“They’ll want to actually work more to get the money in order to do the stuff that they want to do outside of school or other places,” Melvin said.
Melvin thinks that this could lead to prices increasing on products.
“Everything will increase as people get paid more, so the prices will increase,” Melvin said.
The law SB24-210 changed the minimum voter registration age from 16 to 15 years old, to increase youth turnout in elections.
Rylynne Murphy Skillen(11), a junior at MSHS believes that being given the option to register to vote at an earlier age gives you more time to think about voting, and what it entails.
“Even if they don’t register to vote, it still gives them a chance to think about it before they actually start to vote, when that time comes,” Skillen Murphy said.
Murphy Skillen believes that even if you can’t vote yet, registering prepares you for when the time comes.
“It doesn’t decide if you are going to vote or not, but being able to register younger at least gives you that chance to be able to,” Murphy Skillen said.
