HARRISBURG — Saying it memorializes the young lives lost in teen driving crashes, state lawmakers passed legislation to strengthen teen driver laws, including setting passenger limitations and increasing driver training hours.

Members of the state House on Wednesday voted 188-6 to approve House Bill 9, which proponents said enhances the safety of Pennsylvania’s roads and improves the state’s graduated driver’s license law. The bill previously was approved by the Senate.

Gov. Tom Corbett has 10 days to sign the legislation into law.

“We really believe this will make a difference in the number of crashes and the number of deaths,” said state Rep. Kathy Watson, R-144th, who sponsored the legislation. “The bill became a symbol for all those young lives lost.”

Watson chairs the House Transportation Committee’s Subcommittee on Highway Safety.

The bill limits the number of teen passengers to one in a vehicle, for the first six months that a junior driver has a license, with exceptions for family members.

After the first six months, the law restricts the number of passengers younger than 18 to three nonfamily members as long as the teenager has a clean driving record, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian.

The bill also expands training requirements before a teenager can take a test for his license, increasing behind-the-wheel training from 50 hours to 65 hours — 10 of those hours to be at night and five of those hours during bad weather.

Under the new law, it would be a primary offense for any person to drive a vehicle with a passenger younger than 18 who isn’t wearing a seat belt or isn’t properly restrained in a booster or car seat. That means a police officer could stop a vehicle if the officer suspects such a passenger isn’t buckled up or properly restrained.

Marlene Case of Lower Pottsgrove, Montgomery County, whose son, Andrew, 17, died in a 2009 crash, was pleased about the bill’s passage.

Case, who has spoken to national and statewide audiences about the dangers associated with teen driving and urged state lawmakers to adopt effective traffic safety laws, said her fight for such legislation was in memory of her son and Michael Cantamaglia, 16, who also was killed in that crash on Nov. 23, 2009.

The two teens were in an SUV operated by a 16-year-old driver who had just gotten his driver’s license.

“Our families and any other family that has experienced a tragedy like ours will never be the same,” Case said. “Doing our part by helping to protect our young drivers and to prevent these crashes is our goal.”

The young driver laws in Pennsylvania had not been updated since 1999.

Watson said the Senate’s addition of a biannual report about how the implementation of the law is working will provide worthwhile statistical information to let lawmakers know if revisions need to be made.

Watson previously said research has shown that graduated driver’s license laws are associated with reduced teen driver fatalities.

According to one AAA study previously cited by Watson, the chances a 16-year-old will die in a crash increase 39 percent with one teen passenger; 86 percent with two teen passengers; and 182 percent with three or more teen passengers.