Reducing Collisions Involving Young Drivers

Executive Summary

Introduction

In the United States, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for young persons, and young drivers are greatly overrepresented in motor vehicle crashes. It is widely recognized that most novice drivers do not have sufficient experience to handle the complex task of driving when they are first licensed. Moreover, the late teen years involve continuing developmental changes that characterize the transition from childhood to adulthood. These changes result in a variety of behaviors that are risky when they occur in a motor vehicle. Young drivers are more likely than older adult drivers to engage in risky driving behaviors such as speeding and allowing shorter headways. Although such behaviors are sometimes intentional, young driver crashes generally result from errors in attention, failing to recognize hazards, and driving too fast for conditions. Reducing young driver crashes will involve effectively addressing both the youthful propensity to engage in risky behaviors and lack of experience.

Statement of the Problem

Young drivers are more likely to be involved in a motor vehicle crash than any other age group. This is the case whether crash rates are measured per population, per licensed driver, or per mile traveled. This greater crash involvement also results in additional injury risks because the youngest drivers tend to carry the largest number of passengers, typically other teens. And this group¡Xdrivers and passengers alike¡Xis least likely to wear safety belts, thereby foregoing the best protection against injury in the event of a crash. Young drivers are a hazard to other road users, as well. A recent analysis showed that the majority of fatalities in crashes involving 15- to 17-year-old drivers are to persons other than the teen driver, including occupants of other vehicles and nonmotorists.

In 2003, 6,424 teens between the ages of 15 and 20 years old were killed in motor vehicle crashes (CDC, 2006). Although 15- to 20-year-olds represented 8.4 percent of the United States population and 6.3 percent of licensed drivers, they accounted for 13.6 percent of drivers involved in fatal motor vehicle crashes and 18 percent of drivers in police-reported crashes (NHTSA, 2005). The economic cost of crashes involving young drivers amounts to nearly 41 billion dollars a year (NHTSA, 2004).

The greater involvement of younger drivers in crashes results from a variety of factors. Especially during the first few months of driving, inexperience plays a central role in elevated crash rates. Crash rates for newly licensed drivers are highest during the first 6 months of driving alone, during which time they rapidly decrease. This suggests that novices improve their driving relatively quickly. Lack of experience partly coincides with, and is partly responsible for, young drivers' tendency to make poor judgments about hazards in the driving environment and hazardous actions on their own part. Although “risk taking” is often cited as a problem among young drivers, “risky driving” is the more appropriate term.

Programs and Strategies

Based on an extensive review of tried and tested strategies, the following is a summary of strategies most likely to be effective in reducing injuries and fatalities involving young drivers or occupants of motor vehicles driven by young drivers.

Implement or Improve Graduated Driver Licensing Systems

Graduated driver licensing (GDL) systems provide the foundation for protecting young drivers, their passengers, and other road users. Most states have implemented GDL systems, but simply having a GDL system in place is not sufficient. It is important for GDL systems to include the most beneficial risk-reducing restrictions, including the following:

• Enact a full GDL system. GDL is designed to provide beginning drivers with substantial driving practice under the safest possible conditions, exposing them to more risky situations (e.g., nighttime driving) only as experience is gained over time.
• Require at least 6 months of supervised driving for beginners, starting at age 16. A substantial amount of practice is needed—at least 6 months—before a novice driver begins to develop the savvy required to be a proficient and safe driver. Driving with an adult supervisor enables novice drivers to gain needed “real world” driving experience in a reasonably safe fashion.
• Implement a nighttime driving restriction that begins at 9 p.m. A disproportionately high number of young driver fatal crashes occur between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. Beginning drivers should not be exposed to the most risky driving conditions.
• Implement a passenger restriction allowing no young passengers. Carrying teen passengers greatly increases the risk of a serious crash for young drivers. Passenger restrictions for the first several months of unsupervised driving eliminate the distractions that teen passengers inevitably create.
• Prohibit cell phone use by drivers with a GDL license. Recent research suggests that using a cell phone is associated with a fourfold increase in the likelihood of a serious crash among drivers of all ages. Reducing this risk for inexperienced drivers is an appropriate goal for a GDL system.

Publicize, Enforce, and Adjudicate Laws Pertaining to Young Drivers

Some laws pertain specifically to young drivers. Other laws that govern all drivers are particularly important for young drivers. Enhanced publicity, enforcement, and adjudication of these laws, including the following measures, will benefit young drivers:

• Publicize and enforce GDL restrictions. To the extent that teens do not comply with protective restrictions under GDL systems, the safety benefits of GDL will be reduced.
• Publicize and enforce laws pertaining to underage drinking and driving. Both minimum drinking age laws and “zero tolerance” laws have proven effective in reducing alcohol-related crashes and fatalities involving young drivers.
• Publicize and enforce safety belt laws. Safety belt use is lower among young drivers than among adult drivers. Well-publicized enforcement programs and primary safety belt laws have increased belt usage for all drivers, including teen drivers.

Assist Parents in Managing Their Teens' Driving

Parents are inescapably involved in the licensing process of their children, even though they may not recognize the extent of their potential influence. Efforts to assist parents in this role, including the following, can benefit teen drivers:

• Facilitate parental supervision of learners. More effective supervision of teen drivers holds substantial promise for further reducing young driver crashes. Simply distributing educational/advisory materials to parents is insufficient. Persuasive techniques that encourage parents to make use of materials and guidance are needed.
• Facilitate parental management of intermediate drivers. Teen drivers experience a dramatic increase in crashes when they first begin driving alone. Parent-teen driving agreements and new technologies for monitoring teen drivers have the potential to reduce young driver crashes during this high-risk period.
• Encourage selection of safer vehicles for young drivers. Teens often drive vehicles that are less likely to have important safety features. A program that encourages the greatest possible use of safer vehicles by young drivers holds substantial promise for reducing deaths and injuries among teen drivers and their passengers.

Improve Young Driver Training

Although there is no evidence that formal driver education classes are effective in reducing subsequent crash rates among novice drivers, there are a number of promising improvements that can be made in the training of young drivers administered by states:

• Improve content and delivery of driver education/training. The model followed by current driver education programs in the United States was developed in the late 1940s. There is widespread belief that both what is taught and how it is taught can be improved significantly, with the promise that young driver crashes can be reduced as the result. Doing so will require a substantially more ambitious effort than simply adding content to the current curriculum.

Employ School-Based Strategies

Nearly all beginning drivers are in high school. This affords an opportunity to adopt strategies to reduce young driver crashes by implementing policies that take advantage of this natural grouping in both space and time to alter that environment:

• Eliminate early high school start times. Recent developments in understanding human sleep needs indicate that teenagers need to be asleep in the early morning hours. As a result, school systems in the United States have begun to move school start times back to 8:30 or later. This promises to reduce young driver crashes.
• Review transportation plans for new/expanded high school sites. When new schools are built, transportation plans should take into account that there will be a high concentration of inexperienced teens driving in the vicinity of the high school.