Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Arlington, Virginia, USA.
Inj Prev. 2021 Dec;27(6):587-591. doi: 10.1136/injuryprev-2021-044247. Epub 2021 Aug 19.
The learner stage of graduated driver licensing (GDL), when teenagers are supervised by an adult driver, represents an opportunity to develop skills that could confer a safety benefit during their years of independent driving. This paper describes the design of a teenage driving study, which aims to evaluate the impact of a smartphone application, the 'DrivingApp,' to increase the quantity and improve the quality of supervised practice driving.
This longitudinal intervention study of teenage drivers and a parent/guardian spans the final 6 months of the learner licence and the first year of independent driving. Participants will be assigned to experimental or control groups using block allocation. Parent-teenage dyads assigned to the intervention arm will receive information about their practice driving via a smartphone application, including miles driven and total drive time. Baseline and monthly surveys will be administered to both experimental and control participants to measure the outcome measures during the learner stage: (1) practice driving amount, (2) consistency and (3) variety. Outcomes during independent driving are (1) self-reported number of attempts at the driving test and (2) number of crashes during the first year of independent driving.
Improving the quality of teenagers' supervised practice driving is an unmet research need. This study will contribute to the evidence about what can be done during the learner period of GDL to maximise teenage drivers' safety during the first years of independent driving, when crash risk is highest.
在驾驶员学习许可（GDL）的学员阶段，青少年由成人驾驶员监督，这是一个培养技能的机会，这些技能可能会在他们独立驾驶的多年中带来安全益处。本文描述了一项青少年驾驶研究的设计，该研究旨在评估智能手机应用程序“DrivingApp”的效果，以增加监督练习驾驶的数量并提高其质量。
这项针对青少年驾驶员及其父母/监护人的纵向干预研究跨越了学习驾照的最后 6 个月和独立驾驶的第一年。参与者将使用分组分配法被分配到实验组或对照组。分配到干预组的家长-青少年二人组将通过智能手机应用程序获得有关其练习驾驶的信息，包括行驶里程和总驾驶时间。将对实验组和对照组参与者进行基线和每月调查，以衡量学习阶段的结果衡量标准：（1）练习驾驶量，（2）一致性和（3）多样性。独立驾驶期间的结果是（1）自我报告参加驾驶考试的次数，以及（2）独立驾驶的第一年中的事故次数。
提高青少年监督练习驾驶的质量是一项未满足的研究需求。这项研究将有助于了解在 GDL 的学员阶段可以做些什么，以最大程度地提高青少年在独立驾驶的头几年中的安全性，因为那时的碰撞风险最高。
