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SECTION II Introduction In the United States, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for young persons, and young drivers are greatly overrepresented in motor vehicle crashes. Whereas drivers 15â20 years old constitute just over 6.3 percent of the licensed driving population, they represent 13.6 percent of all drivers in fatal crashes (NHTSA, 2005). It is widely recognized that most novice drivers do not have sufficient training or experience to handle the complex task of driving when they are first licensed. Moreover, the late teen years involve continuing developmental changes that characterize the transition from childhood to adulthood. These changes result in a variety of behaviors that are risky when they occur in a motor vehicle. Despite dramatic engineering improvements in the safety of roadways and motor vehicles, as well as substantial behavioral improvement among drivers (e.g., increases in safety belt use and decreases in alcohol-impaired driving), fatal crash rates per licensed driver increased substantially among 16-year-olds from 1976 to 1996 (IIHS, 1998). During that same period, fatality rates among all other age groups declined. Although fatal crash rates declined for 17- to 19-year-olds, these decreases were less than those of the general driving population. The situation with young drivers can best be summed up as one where individuals begin driving with (1) insufficient savvy to recognize and avoid dangerous situations and behaviors and (2) inadequate driving experience to recover safely from the potentially crash-producing situations in which they are more likely to find themselves. Young drivers are more likely than adult drivers to engage in risky driving behaviors, such as speeding and allowing shorter headways (Simons-Morton, Lerner and Singer, 2005). Although such behaviors are sometimes intentional, young driver crashes generally result from errors in attention, failing to recognize hazards, and driving too fast for conditions (McKnight and McKnight, 2003). Reducing young driver crashes will involve effectively addressing both the youthful propensity to engage in risky behaviors and the lack of experience. The latter involves cognitive/judgmental development, not merely the simple physical skills involved in driving. Addressing young driver crashes is a particularly complex issue because the factors that lead to crashes among 16- and 17-year-olds are quite different from those that contribute to crashes of 18- and 19-year-olds. Indeed, at every age, the relative contributions of inexperience, impulsiveness, distractibility, poor judgment, alcohol use, speeding, and lack of safety belt use change. Decreasing young driver crashes will require not only reducing the factors that contribute to crashes for all drivers, but also addressing the inexperience and the social, emotional, and biological development that characterize young drivers. II-1
