Teen Drivers Dangerous During First Month Behind the Wheel

The spotlight has been put on teen’s driving abilities over the past year. In fact, insurers and parents have expressed support for increased restrictions on teens driving and the passing of the Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection Act that was introduced in the U.S. Senate on March 9, 2011. A new study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety may spur even stronger support for more oversight. The study reveals that teen drivers are approximately 50 percent more likely to crash in the first month of driving than they are after a full year of experience driving on their own, and are nearly twice as likely to suffer a crash as they are after two full years of experience.

"We know that young drivers' crash rates decrease quickly as they gain experience,” said AAA Foundation President and CEO Peter Kissinger. “What our new study tells us is that there are a few specific abilities that we could do a better job of helping teens develop before they begin driving independently."

Researchers analyzed crashes of first-month teen drivers in North Carolina and found three common mistakes—failure to reduce speed, inattention and failure to yield—account for 57 percent of all crashes. When researchers looked at specific types of crashes in relation to how long the driver had been licensed, they found that some types of crashes occurred at relatively high rates at first and declined particularly quickly with experience. For example, crashes involving left-hand turns were common during the first few months of driving but declined almost immediately. The high initial rate and subsequent steep decline in certain types of crashes appeared to reflect teens' initial inexperience followed by rapid learning. Crash types that decline more slowly appear to result not from a lack of understanding, but from a failure to master certain driving skills.

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