Motor vehicle crashes are the major cause of death and disability among adolescents from 16 through 20 years of age due to age, driving inexperience, and risky driving behaviors. The impact of parenting practices on adolescent driving behavior has not been examined thoroughly. This study is an efficacy trial of an intervention designed to reduce teen crashes and risky driving by getting parents more involved in the monitoring and control of their adolescents' driving practices during the first few years of licensure. A sample of 4,000 teenagers applying for their learner's permit and their parents will be recruited in Connecticut to participate. Teens and parents will be interviewed upon recruitment and followed for 24 months. Parents will be randomly assigned to the basic information comparison condition or the special educational treatment condition. During the 24 month period, parents and teens will be contacted three more times: once when teens are eligible for their drivers licenses and 6 and 12 months after licensure. Over the telephone, parents will be interviewed regarding their attitudes and parenting practices related to the control of their teens' driving behaviors and teens will be interviewed regarding their attitudes regarding driving, parents' monitoring of their driving, and their driving behaviors. Driving records for each teen will be examined to compare teens in the two groups on traffic citations and crash involvements.

Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
Budget End
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2000
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
U.S. National Inst/Child Hlth/Human Dev
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
State
Country
United States
Zip Code
Simons-Morton, Bruce; Ehsani, Johnathon P (2016) Learning to Drive Safely: Reasonable Expectations and Future Directions for the Learner Period. Safety (Basel) 2:
Jackson, John C; Albert, Paul S; Zhang, Zhiwei et al. (2013) Ordinal latent variable models and their application in the study of newly licensed teenage drivers. J R Stat Soc Ser C Appl Stat 62:435-450
Simons-Morton, Bruce G; Cheon, Kyeongmi; Guo, Feng et al. (2013) Trajectories of kinematic risky driving among novice teenagers. Accid Anal Prev 51:27-32
Zakrajsek, Jennifer S; Shope, Jean T; Ouimet, Marie Claude et al. (2009) Efficacy of a brief group parent-teen intervention in driver education to reduce teenage driver injury risk: a pilot study. Fam Community Health 32:175-88
Simons-Morton, Bruce G; Ouimet, Marie Claude; Wang, Jing et al. (2009) Hard Braking Events Among Novice Teenage Drivers By Passenger Characteristics. Proc Int Driv Symp Hum Factors Driv Assess Train Veh Des 2009:236-242
Ando, Mikayo; Asakura, Takashi; Ando, Shinichiro et al. (2007) A psychoeducational program to prevent aggressive behavior among Japanese early adolescents. Health Educ Behav 34:765-76
Simons-Morton, Bruce (2007) Parent involvement in novice teen driving: rationale, evidence of effects, and potential for enhancing graduated driver licensing effectiveness. J Safety Res 38:193-202
Olsen, Erik C B; Lee, Suzanne E; Simons-Morton, Bruce G (2007) Eye Movement Patterns for Novice Teen Drivers Does 6 Months of Driving Experience Make a Difference? Transp Res Rec 2009:8-14
Simons-Morton, Bruce G; Hartos, Jessica L; Leaf, William A et al. (2006) The effects of the checkpoints program on parent-imposed driving limits and crash outcomes among Connecticut novice teen drivers at 6-months post-licensure. J Safety Res 37:9-15
Iannotti, Ronald J; Nansel, Tonja R; Schneider, Stefan et al. (2006) Assessing regimen adherence of adolescents with type 1 diabetes. Diabetes Care 29:2263-7

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