1. CRASH FACTS
2. CELL PHONES
3. DRUNK DRIVING
4. SEATBELT USAGE
5. SPEEDING
6. GOOD GRADE DISCOUNTS

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Teen Drivers

 THE TOPIC

 

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among 15- to 20-year olds. Immaturity and lack of driving experience are the two main factors leading to the high crash rate among teens. Teens lack of experience affects their recognition of and response to hazardous situations and results in dangerous practices such as speeding and tailgating.

Other major contributing factors to the higher crash risk of young drivers are night driving and teen passengers. Teenagers are involved in more motor vehicle crashes late in the day and at night than at other times of the day. Teens also have a greater chance of getting involved in an accident if other teens are present in the vehicle.

Graduated drivers license (GDL) laws, which include a three-phase program that allows teen drivers to develop more mature driving attitudes and gain experience behind the wheel, have been successful in reducing teen motor vehicle accidents. Since 1996, when Florida became the first state to enact a GDL law, most states have enacted such laws, but provisions vary.

Federal Legislation for Graduated Drivers License Laws:

In April 2009 the Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection Act (STANDUP) was introduced into Congress by Rep. Timothy H. Bishop of New York. The bill, HR 1895, authorizes the Department of Transportation to award incentive grants to states with graduated drivers licensing laws that include a two-stage licensing process for drivers under the age of 21. The first stage is a learners permit, which is available beginning at age 16. This stage must last for at least six months and prohibit night-time driving and using a cellphone or other communications device in nonemergency situations. This stage lasts until the learner graduates to the intermediate stage or the driver reaches the age of 18. The intermediate stage must also last for at least six months and include the same restrictions as for the learners permit stage along with prohibiting more than one nonfamilial passenger under the age of 21 if there is no licensed driver age 21 or older in the vehicle. The bill also contains provisions that allow the Secretary of Transportation to include more requirements and to withhold a percentage of federal highway funds from states that do not comply with the law. (See also Background, Graduated Drivers License Programs.) 

CRASH FACTS

1. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that 3,174 drivers between the ages of 15 and 20 died in motor vehicle crashes in 2007, down 9.1 percent from 3,490 in 2006 and down 5.5 percent from 3,358 in 1997, the latest data available. An additional 252,000 young drivers were injured in 2007.
   
   

2. Drivers age 15 to 20 accounted for 13 percent of all drivers involved in fatal crashes and 15 percent of all drivers involved in police-reported crashes.
   
   

3. The number of drivers age 15 to 20 involved in fatal crashes totaled 6,982 in 2007, down 6.4 percent from 7,463 in 2006 and down 12.0 percent from 7,936 in 1997.
   
   

4. Thirty-one percent of drivers age 15 to 20 who were killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2007 had been drinking some amount of alcohol; 26 percent were alcohol-impaired, which is defined by a blood alcohol content of 0.08 grams per deciliter or higher.
   
   

5. In 2006 (latest data available) crashes involving 15- to 17-year olds cost more than $34 billion nationwide in medical treatment, property damage and other costs, according to an AAA analysis.
    
   

6. Studies: The Allstate Foundation and the National Organizations for Youth Safety released a survey of young drivers in May 2009 that shows that 83 percent of teenagers admit talking on a cellphone while driving. Sixty-eight percent of the 16 to 20-year old drivers surveyed said they text while driving, even though they think that talking and texting is as dangerous as driving on icy roads and in rain and snow.
    

7. A 2008 study conducted by former Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) chief scientist Allan Williams found that raising the age at which drivers are licensed would save lives. The study, highlighted in a September 2008 report by the IIHS, focused on driving age and rules in different countries. The study found that raising the driving age would substantially reduce crashes involving teenage drivers in the United States, where most states permit driving at about age 16. Ten states and the District of Columbia start licensing at around 16 ½, 33 at 16 and six between 14 ½ and 15 ½. New Jersey is the only state in which drivers have to be 17 to get a license.
    

8. In a May 2008 study using recent federal crash statistics, Allstate Insurance Company claims data for teen collisions and U.S. Census Bureau data to score metropolitan areas of the United States, Allstate identified "hotspots" where fatal teen driving crash rates are highest: Tampa/St. Petersburg/Clearwater, FL; Orlando/Kissimmee, FL; Jacksonville, FL; Nashville, TN and Birmingham, AL. The top five best scoring areas in the study are in some of the nation's largest cities: San Francisco/Oakland, CA; San Jose, CA; New York/Long Island, NY/NJ; Los Angeles, CA and Cleveland, OH. The study also found that crash rates for teens are double in rural areas, compared with cities and suburbs, with a rate of 51.5 per 100,000 teens, compared with 25.4 in metro areas.

Graduated Drivers License Programs:

To lower the high fatality rate among teenage drivers, most states have adopted one or more elements of a graduated drivers license (GDL) system, in which teenagers gradually receive full driving privileges. The system consists of three stages that allow new drivers to gain experience under controlled circumstances. (See chart at the end of this section.)

The three phases of GDLs are: a supervised learners period; an intermediate license, which allows unsupervised driving depending on various situations; and a full privileges license. A teenager with a learners permit is required to remain in that stage for a minimum period, usually six months. A learners permit also requires that when driving, a teenager must be supervised by an adult, pass vision and knowledge tests and pass a test before receiving an intermediate license. In addition, the driver must wear a seatbelt and be traffic- and-alcohol offense free, and is restricted from driving at night. An intermediate or restricted license requires a minimum of six months and restricts passengers and night time driving. In all stages, there is zero tolerance for drunk driving and a requirement to be traffic offense free.

Florida was the first state to adopt a GDL program in 1996. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 47 states currently have all three stages, but provisions vary.

Effectiveness of Graduated Drivers License (GDL) Programs:

Studies dating back to the late 1990s attribute reductions in teen crash deaths to GDL programs. Some of the latest studies showed the following:

• A 34 percent decrease in teenagers killed in motor vehicle crashes in Colorado in 2007, compared with 2006, and a 60 percent decrease from 2002, when teen crash deaths were at an all-time high. Officials cited the passage of GDL laws and later laws enacted to strengthen them for the reduction along with safe driving education programs and the enforcement of seatbelt laws. 

• A decrease of about one-third in hospitalizations and hospital costs for 16-year-old drivers in North Carolina in the 46 months after the state’s GDL laws went into effect in 1997. The lead author of the study (sponsored by State Farm Insurance Company and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and released in January 2007) said that the findings suggest that the reductions result from 16-year olds driving less rather than from improvements in their driving skills. A 2001 study based on crash data found that there had been a 57 percent drop in fatal accidents involving 16-year olds since the law went into effect. 

• A reduction in the incidence of fatal crashes for 16-year-old drivers of an average of 11 percent. When states had comprehensive GDL programs, those with at least five of the most important elements in effect, there was a 20 percent reduction in fatal crashes involving 16-year-old drivers. In states that had six or seven components, fatal crashes fell 21 percent. The findings were reported in a study released in 2006 from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researchers examined fatal crash data from the 36 states that had GDL programs and from seven states that did not.

GDLs have also reduced deaths among teenage drivers in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, where versions of the system exist. The first long-term study to investigate the benefits of each licensing stage, a 2002 study conducted in Nova Scotia, concluded that crash reductions among young beginning drivers occur in both the learner and intermediate stages. The study, “Specific and Long-term Effects of Nova Scotia’s Graduated Licensing Program,” marks the first six months of the learner stage as the most significant period of crash reductions. For beginning drivers who got their learners permit at 16-or 17-years old, crashes declined 51 percent. During the intermediate stage, when drivers are allowed to drive unsupervised except late at night, crashes were reduced by 9 percent in the first year and 11 percent in the second year. Crash rates increased by 4 percent, however, during the first year after the drivers graduated to full license status. Nova Scotia’s GDL program was adopted in 1994, before many U.S. states began adopting the system.

Graduated Drivers License (GDL) Restrictions: When teenage drivers transport passengers there is a greatly increased crash risk, according to a March 2008 NHTSA report. When there are multiple passengers, the crash risk is 3 to 5 times greater than when driving alone. The risk is greatest for the youngest drivers (age 16 and 17). In California, Massachusetts and Virginia, passenger restrictions have reduced crashes among 16-year-old drivers. Crash involvement per 1,000 16-year-old drivers fell from 1.07 to 0.85 in California after passenger restrictions were passed. The reduction was from 0.88 to 0.61 in Massachusetts and from 1.41 to 1.10 in Virginia.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm released a study in 2007 that found that children are safer when riding in a vehicle with a teen driver who is their sibling rather than a teen driver who is not related. Earlier research found that children driven by teens are twice as likely to sustain crash injuries, which prompted legislators in many states to enact passenger restriction laws. The study showed that children’s risk of crash injury when the teen driver is a sibling is 40 percent lower. Some states allow teen drivers to have only family members as passengers.

Fatality and injury crash rates for 16-year-old drivers were 20 percent lower in states with nighttime and passenger restrictions than in jurisdictions that lacked these provisions, according to a study released in 2006 by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. For the study, the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) compared crash rates and crash patterns of teenage drivers in one jurisdiction with nighttime and passenger restrictions during the intermediate stage of GDL with those in another jurisdiction whose GDL program did not include such restrictions. TIRF also surveyed a random sample of 500 crash-free and 500 crash-involved, newly licensed teens and their parents in each of two jurisdictions. The study found that twice as many teens who had not been involved in a crash reported never having violated their state’s passenger restriction provision, as opposed to teens who had been involved in a crash.

According to a 2005 study, when teens drive other teens, they tend to drive faster than other motorists and leave less distance between their vehicles and the vehicles in front of them. They speed more frequently when there are other teens in vehicles, especially males. These findings by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and We stat were compiled from data collected at 13 sites on roads in the Washington, D.C. area, where over 3,000 passenger vehicles were observed, including 471 driven by teenagers.

Cellphones:

Safety experts say that using a cellphone while driving is a major distraction and is a factor in crashes (see Cellphones and Driving paper).

Seven jurisdictions have laws banning the use of hand-held cellphones for all drivers while driving--California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Utah, Washington State and the District of Columbia. By June 2009, 21 states and the District of Columbia had passed laws specifically banning or restricting young drivers from using cellphones. Washington State was the first state to ban the practice of “texting” with a cellphone while driving. Text messaging is banned for all drivers in 14 states and the District of Columbia. Novice drivers are specifically banned from texting in nine states. (See chart below: State Young Driver Laws; http://wwww.iihs.org).

In July 2007 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Center for Statistics and Analysis released the results of their National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS), which found that in 2006, among drivers who appear to be age 16 to 24, 8 percent were holding a phone to their ears, down from 10 percent in 2005. Only 0.7 percent of drivers in this age range appeared to be speaking with headsets, down from 1.3 percent in 2005. In 2006, 0.4 percent of these drivers appeared to be manipulating some type of electronic device, such as a cellphone or video game, up slightly from 0.3 percent in 2005.

According to a July 2007 USA Today snapshot of a report published by The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance, 64 percent of teens said they would stop using cellphones while driving if their license could be taken away if they were caught. Receiving an insurance discount would deter 58 percent and 51 percent would be deterred if there was a law against it.

Speeding:

Teen drivers have an unrealistic view of safe driving behaviour, according to researchers at San Diego State University. The young drivers who were surveyed between January and December 2002 believed they were speeding if they were driving at around 90 mph, and 62 percent of the whole group confessed to being in a vehicle where drunk driving, street racing, reckless driving or other dangerous activities were engaged in. The survey questioned 2,310 Southern California teens between 15 and 18 years old. Of this group, 1,430 teens were seeking their first drivers license and 880 teens had previously committed a traffic offense.

The teen violator group considered the threshold of speeding at an average 93 mph. First time learners put the threshold at an average 88 mph. Nearly 73 percent of the teen violators said they were exposed to reckless driving, speeding, driving while intoxicated or other dangerous activities.

Seatbelt Use:

In 2007, 55 percent or 2,502 of the 4,540 occupants of passenger vehicles age 16 to 20 who were killed in crashes were not buckled up, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Teen belt use rates are especially low at night—nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of the 16 to 20-year olds killed in nighttime crashes were unbelted at the time.

Teenagers are less likely to wear safety belts even when their parents do, according to a survey conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) released in 2002. The report found that 46 percent of the teenagers who were dropped off at school by their parents were not wearing safety belts and in 8 percent of cases teens were using safety belts while the adult driver was not. The survey, conducted at 12 high schools in Connecticut and Massachusetts, focused on four groups: teen drivers, teen passengers in vehicles with teen drivers, teen passengers with adult drivers and adult drivers.

The survey also found that belt use differed based on gender and age. Belt use was lower among male teen drivers than male adults, while the difference between female teen drivers and female adult drivers was negligible. Teenage passenger belt use was much lower for both males and females than adults. Only 50 percent of males and 56 percent of females riding with adult drivers were buckled up in the morning going to school. In addition, the study revealed that when a teenage driver was behind the wheel, the use among teen passengers fell to 42 percent among males and 52 percent among females. To increase seatbelt use among teens, the IIHS suggests adding belt use provisions to graduated licensing systems.

Drunk Driving:

Underage drinking remains a factor in teenage highway fatalities. According to NHTSA, in 2007, 31 percent of drivers age 15 to 20 who were killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2007 had been drinking some amount of alcohol; 26 percent were alcohol-impaired, meaning they had a blood alcohol content of 0.08 grams per deciliter or higher. Researchers from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation say that laws banning the purchase or possession of alcohol by people under the age of 21 and banning the use of false identification to buy alcohol have reduced the ratio of drinking to nondrinking drivers involved in fatal accidents by 11 percent and 7 percent, respectively. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that numerous studies since the 1970s show that when the drinking age is lowered, more people die in crashes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that 826 lives (ages 18, 19 and 20) were saved by the minimum drinking age laws in 2007. Since 2003 about 4,400 lives have been saved by these laws.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is one organization that has combated this problem for more than 20 years. It has been instrumental in organizing various campaigns to educate the public about the effects of driving while intoxicated. In addition, some insurance companies have sponsored initiatives and events that discourage underage drinking and drunk driving.

Auto Insurance Premium Discounts:

Rates for auto insurance for teenage drivers are always higher than for other drivers because as a group they pose a higher risk of accidents than more experienced drivers. Adding a teenager to an insurance policy can mean a 50 percent or even a 100 percent increase in the parents’ insurance premium. Some insurance companies offer discounts for students with good grades. The Good Student Discount is generally available to students who have a grade point average of a B or higher. Other companies offer discounts for young drivers and parents who participate in online safety courses.

Insurance companies are helping to reduce the number of accidents involving teen drivers by subsidizing the cost of electronic devices that parents can install in their cars to monitor the way teens drive or by offering discounts to policyholders with teens who use these devices. The American Family Insurance Company has supplied about 2,000 families in the United States with a video camera that alerts parents when a teen driver makes a driving error. The program includes discounts for families that use the camera, which is operated by an independent company that provides weekly reports for parents. AIG and Safeco Insurance use global positioning systems (GPS) to monitor teen drivers and parents can be alerted by email, text message or phone if their children exceed preset boundaries on speeding or distance.