title: Impact of graduated driver licensing restrictions on crashes involving young drivers in New Zealand.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the impact on young driver crashes of the three main driving restrictions in the New Zealand graduated driver licensing (GDL) system: night-time curfew, no carrying of young passengers, and a blood alcohol limit of 30 mg/100 ml.
  
  
  METHODS
  The database for this study was created by linking police crash reports to hospital inpatient records (1980-95). Multivariate logistic regression was used to compare car crashes involving a young driver licensed before GDL (n=2,252) with those who held a restricted graduated licence (n=980) and with those who held a full graduated licence (n=1,273), for each of the main driving restrictions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared with the pre-GDL group, the restricted licence drivers had fewer crashes at night (p=0.003), fewer involving passengers of all ages (p=0.018), and fewer where alcohol was suspected (p=0.034), but not fewer involving young casualties (p=0.980). Compared with the pre-GDL drivers, those with the full graduated licence had fewer night crashes (p=0.042) but did not differ significantly for any of the other factors examined.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggest that some of the GDL restrictions, especially the night-time curfew, have contributed to a reduction in serious crashes involving young drivers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. dorothy.begg@ipru.otago.ac.nz
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Begg
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stephenson
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Alsop
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Langley
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D009520:New Zealand