Attitudes of teenagers and their parents to Pennsylvania's graduated driver licensing system.

OBJECTIVES

To determine the attitudes of teens and parents in Pennsylvania (PA) towards the enhanced graduated driver licensing (GDL) system implemented in 2000, and to assess their understanding of teen crash risk.

METHODS

Cross-sectional survey of teen drivers and their parents. Eligible teens were 16 or 17 years old when they obtained their first learner's permits in 2000. A simple random sample of 2500 was obtained from 48,372 meeting inclusion criteria. Questions were based on previous surveys and pre-tested in focus groups.

ANALYSIS

Chi-square, McNemar, or t-tests, as appropriate.

RESULTS

A total of 1561 surveys (811 parents and 750 teens) were included in the analysis. There were no differences between the sample and teen respondents. Their junior license had been achieved by 735 (98%) teens and had been driving unsupervised for a mean of 14.1 months (SD 4.89). Greater than ninety percent (90%) of parents approved of the overall system, the six-month learner phase, and the requirement for parental certification of 50 hours of supervised driving. The teens' reactions were less positive than the parents' (p < 0.001), but only 16% reported a negative overall reaction. 31.4% of the teens reported not completing the required 50 hours of supervised driving. 70.6% of parents felt the nighttime driving restriction was "just right" at 11 pm but 54.0% of teens preferred that it be returned to 12 mn (p < 0.001). When asked about the crash rate for teen drivers, 72.8% of teens and 74.0% of parents chose rates 2 to 100 times less than the reported crash rate (p = 0.8).

CONCLUSIONS

In PA, the primary stakeholders, teen drivers and their parents, were poorly informed about teen crash risk. Parents were very positive and teens are generally neutral or weakly positive about the new restrictions imposed by the enhanced graduated driver licensing system. Better understanding of the crash rate for teen drivers might increase approval of system restrictions, enhance compliance, and further strengthen the system.