Chapter 23 – Young Drivers

Publisher Summary Traffic crashes are the leading cause of injury among teenagers. The causative agents of this crisis are multifold, as research clearly suggests that teenagers represent a unique population of drivers who are influenced by a myriad of physical, social, developmental, behavioral, and environmental factors. One of the key challenges in ensuring road traffic safety among the young, from infancy to young adulthood, is that one must anticipate and design according to the range of safety behaviors, which for children rapidly evolve according to physical, social, emotional, and cognitive developmental stages. The substantial increase in motor vehicle crash injury risk emerges as teens begin to drive and take rides with peers. In adolescence, teen drivers start as learners who are highly dependent on adult supervisors who teach, serve as role models, help to manage the behavior of any passengers within the car, and provide a second “set of eyes” looking for hazards on the road. Within just a year of their first driving experience, most teens are licensed as independent drivers with the primary responsibility for the driving task as well as managing passenger behavior and interacting with other road users. Successful development of driving skills, expertise, and competencies, including psychomotor, cognitive, and perceptual proficiencies, requires a balance between safety limits and the freedom to explore and test the teen's ability. Although novice teen drivers can acquire basic operational driving skills, a watershed of new research reveals that biological and cognitive factors inherent to the adolescent developmental period may affect the capacity of young persons to perform safe-driving behaviors effectively.