Joseph Delbuono Jr. would have turned 16 on Saturday. His mother, Gina Delbuono, 38, remains inconsolable.

Her son died April 8, in a crash minutes after Central Regional High School students began spring break. He had jumped into the back seat of a car driven by 17-year-old Thomas Tierney of Berkeley.

Tierney was driving with a provisional license and had three passengers. That is not allowed under a law enacted in 2001, said David Weinstein, spokesman for the state Motor Vehicle Commission.

A driver with a provisional license may have just "one person beyond your family or household . . . in the car during the times you are allowed to drive by law," Weinstein said.

The provisional license is the second step in the state's Graduated Driver License Program, coming between the learner's permit and full driver's license.

Police said Tierney was driving a Mazda MX6 recklessly and was speeding. He lost control of the Mazda, which slid sideways and in front of a Dodge Caravan carrying two women and a 5-year-old girl, police said. Joseph's life was left hanging by a thread and two other Central Regional High School students, also passengers in the Mazda, were critically injured, police said.

Gina Delbuono wants every mother and father to know how important it is to tell their children to never get in the car with an inexperienced driver - especially one with a provisional license. Not enough is being done to stress the urgency of the message, she said.

"The graduated license is not working and it is not being enforced," Delbuono said.

"I don't know what they are teaching them in school but they have to show them what can happen," she said. "This is one of the most important things for children to learn. You get the subjects - English, history, math - but this is the most important thing."

Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Steven Janosko said the graduated license program is difficult to enforce.

"The implementation of the idea was overdue for many years," Janosko said. "There is no question that if it was fully implemented it would save many lives. Not only teens," but other drivers who are involved in the crashes with the inexperienced drivers.

"There are a lot of laws . . . and they are enforced at the level of local ability," Janosko said. "It is not easy to enforce something like a graduated license."

Seaside Heights Police Chief Thomas Boyd said enforcing a graduated license is not a high priority for his officers who deal with thousands of teens heading to the beach and boardwalk each day during the summer.

"It is a tough situation," Boyd said. "Especially in a resort town. We have nothing but 17- and 18-year-old kids in cars. It would completely strain our resources if we had to check every car" to see how old the occupants are.

Anthony Shecton, 16, and Permont Tolbert, 18, both of Seaside Heights, were classmates of Joseph Delbuono, who they said was a lot of fun to be around. But even knowing what happened to their friend, the peer pressure of being with friends in a car is almost impossible to resist, they said.

"I know I am not supposed to get in a car with a kid" who has a provisional license "but if a friend pulls up and says "you want to go for a ride?' I am going to go," Tolbert said.

Tolbert does not have a driver's license and is going into his senior year at Central Regional High School, he said.

"It is almost like it makes it more fun because you know you are not supposed to do it," Shecton said.

Janosko said young, inexperienced drivers should have a longer period of time before they get free rein to ride around unsupervised.

"It is an effective program, but I would like to see it go further than it does requiring more behind-the-wheel experience than they do now," Janosko said.

Christie Huddle, 21, of Binghamton, N.Y., said she got a driver's permit at 16 and her license at 18. She was able to drive without a licensed driver in the car at 16 but only at certain times.

Her mother, Debra Huddle, disagrees. The former emergency room nurse turned administrator said teenagers should not drive at all until they are 18.

"If they crash, they should pull their license," Debra Huddle said. "One crash, that's it."

Cars today are faster and made for high performance. They should not be in the hands of young, inexperienced drivers, Janosko said.

Gina Delbuono said parents need to know they can't put their kids in cars that are made for speed.

But that message is hard to get across to parents, Janosko said.

Injuries to Tierney, the driver of the Mazda in which Joseph Delbuono was killed, were not life-threatening, said Robert A. Gasser, executive assistant Ocean County prosecutor. Gina Delbuono said she did not know Tierney and that he was a new friend of her son's.

Tierney has been charged as a juvenile with vehicular manslaughter, which has a different penalty than if it were an adult charge.

The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office is expected to decide soon whether to seek to charge Tierney as an adult, in which case it would be presented to a grand jury. Anthony Pierro, supervisor of the prosecutor's juvenile division, said the decision will be based on the ongoing investigation.