Motor vehicle crashes are the major cause of death and injury among adolescents. Crash risk is particularly elevated at licensure, declines rapidly for about 6 months (consistent with an effect of learning), and then decline more slowely for a number of years. Risk is particularly elevated under certain driving conditions, such as with teen passengers, at night, while engaged in secondary in-vehicle tasks. Our group has developed a program of research, including observational and experimental studies, designed to increase understanding of teen driving risks and reduce crash risks during the early months of licensure. We are conducting naturalistic observational studies to determine the nature of teen driving risk. Specifically, we are interested in determining how driving performance improves over time and varies under certain driving conditions, such as with teen passengers and at night. In the Naturalistic Teenage Driving Study and the Supervised Practice Driving Study we instrumented the vehicles of teenage drivers with accelerometers, GPS, and cameras with continuous recording, enabling the assessment of virtually all aspects of driving over the first 18 months of driving. Because teens shared vehicles with their parents, who were also study participants, we could compare teen and adult driving behavior in the same vehicles and driving conditions. Findings to date have included high crash rates among teens compared to parents, declining over time;high rates of elevated g-force events among teens that did not decline over time. In the Teen Passenger Study we are examing the effect of peer passengers on the simulated risky driving of teenage male drivers. To date we have demonstrated that teens drive in a more risky manner in the presence of passengers, particularly risk accepting passengers. Teens sensive to exclusion were particularly sensitive to peer influence.

Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
Budget End
Support Year
16
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
U.S. National Inst/Child Hlth/Human Dev
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
State
Country
Zip Code
Wasylyshyn, Nick; Hemenway Falk, Brett; Garcia, Javier O et al. (2018) Global brain dynamics during social exclusion predict subsequent behavioral conformity. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 13:182-191
Gershon, Pnina; Ehsani, Johnathon; Zhu, Chunming et al. (2018) Vehicle ownership and other predictors of teenagers risky driving behavior: Evidence from a naturalistic driving study. Accid Anal Prev 118:96-101
O'Brien, Fearghal; Bible, Joe; Liu, Danping et al. (2017) Do Young Drivers Become Safer After Being Involved in a Collision? Psychol Sci 28:407-413
Gershon, Pnina; Zhu, Chunming; Klauer, Sheila G et al. (2017) Teens' distracted driving behavior: Prevalence and predictors. J Safety Res 63:157-161
Simons-Morton, Bruce (2017) Driving in search of analyses. Stat Med 36:3763-3771
Kar, Indra Neal; Li, Kaigang; Haynie, Denise L et al. (2017) Emerging adults without a driver's license engage in more transportation-related physical activity to school/work in certain environmental contexts. Prev Med 96:42-48
Ehsani, J P; Klauer, S G; Zhu, C et al. (2017) Naturalistic assessment of the learner license period. Accid Anal Prev 106:275-284
Vaca, Federico E; Li, Kaigang; Hingson, Ralph et al. (2016) Transitions in Riding With an Alcohol/Drug-Impaired Driver From Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood in the United States. J Stud Alcohol Drugs 77:77-85
Li, Kaigang; Simons-Morton, Bruce; Gee, Benjamin et al. (2016) Marijuana-, alcohol-, and drug-impaired driving among emerging adults: Changes from high school to one-year post-high school. J Safety Res 58:15-20
O'Brien, Fearghal; Klauer, Sheila G; Ehsani, Johnathon et al. (2016) Changes over 12 months in eye glances during secondary task engagement among novice drivers. Accid Anal Prev 93:48-54

Showing the most recent 10 out of 49 publications