Crash and risky driving involvement among novice adolescent drivers and their parents.
OBJECTIVE
We compared rates of risky driving among novice adolescent and adult drivers over the first 18 months of adolescents' licensure.


METHODS
Data-recording systems installed in participants' vehicles provided information on driving performance of 42 newly licensed adolescent drivers and their parents. We analyzed crashes and near crashes and elevated g-force event rates by Poisson regression with random effects.


RESULTS
During the study period, adolescents were involved in 279 crashes or near crashes (1 involving injury); parents had 34 such accidents. The incidence rate ratio (IRR) comparing adolescent and parent crash and near-crash rates was 3.91. Among adolescent drivers, elevated rates of g-force events correlated with crashes and near crashes (r = 0.60; P < .001). The IRR comparing incident rates of risky driving among adolescents and parents was 5.08. Adolescents' rates of crashes and near crashes declined with time (with a significant uptick in the last quarter), but elevated g-force event rates did not decline.


CONCLUSIONS
Elevated g-force events among adolescents may have contributed to crash and near-crash rates that remained much higher than adult levels after 18 months of driving.
Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD 20892-7510, USA. mortonb@mail.nih.gov
Bruce G
BG
Simons-Morton
Marie Claude
MC
Ouimet
Zhiwei
Z
Zhang
Sheila E
SE
Klauer
Suzanne E
SE
Lee
Jing
J
Wang
Paul S
PS
Albert
Thomas A
TA
Dingus
D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000193:education; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D012309:Risk-Taking