Compliance With and Enforcement of Graduated Driver Licensing Restrictions

Abstract

Introduction Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) is the most effective strategy to reduce the burden of young driver crashes, but the extent to which young intermediate (newly licensed) drivers comply with and police enforce important GDL passenger and night-time restrictions is largely unknown. Population-level rates of intermediate drivers’ compliance were estimated as well as police enforcement among crash-involved drivers who were non-compliant. Methods New Jersey’s statewide driver licensing and crash databases were individually linked. The quasi-induced exposure method’s fundamental assumption—that non-responsible young intermediate drivers in clean (i.e., only one responsible driver) multivehicle crashes are reasonably representative of young intermediate drivers on the road—was borrowed. Incidence was then estimated among the 9,250 non-responsible intermediate drivers who were involved in clean multivehicle crashes from July 2010 through June 2012. The proportion of crash-involved non-compliant intermediate drivers who were issued a GDL citation, by crash responsibility, was calculated. Data were collected in 2013 and analyzed in 2015. Results Overall, 8.3% (95% CI=7.8%, 8.9%) of intermediate drivers’ trips were non-compliant with New Jersey’s passenger restriction and 3.1% (95% CI=2.8%, 3.5%) with its night-time restriction; compliance was significantly lower among those residing in low-income and urban areas, among male drivers, on weekends, and in summer months. The proportion of crash-involved non-compliant intermediate drivers who were issued a GDL citation was low (non-responsible drivers, 10.3%; responsible drivers, 19.0%). Conclusions The vast majority of intermediate driver trips are in compliance with GDL restrictions. Outreach activities should consider targeting higher-risk situations and groups with higher non-compliance rates.

Pathways linking car transport for young adults and the public health in Northern Ireland: a qualitative study to inform the evaluation of graduated driver licensing

“…Some participants thought that implementation of elements of the GDL regime might be unenforceable, but problems in enforcing regulations are not a reason for foregoing regulation. In other jurisdictions, non-compliance has been less an issue than predicted [ 40 , 41 ] although there have been some reports of ignoring restrictions [ 28 ].…”

Young Driver Compliance With Graduated Driver Licensing Restrictions Before and After Implementation of a Decal Provision

“…18 In a series of previous papers, we demonstrated that this assumption is valid for the population of young intermediate drivers in NJ and that compliance with passenger and nighttime restrictions can be estimated using the QIE method. 11,14,19 Using these previously established methods, we identified all non-responsible 17-to 20-year-old intermediate drivers who were involved in a clean crash involving at least two vehicles from May 1, 2008 through April 30, 2012. For each study month, the prevalence of trip-level noncompliance was estimated as I i / N , where i is the restriction of interest, N is the total number of non-responsible intermediate drivers involved in clean multi-vehicle crashes, and I i is the number of these non-responsible intermediate drivers who were not in compliance with restriction i at the time of their crash.…”

“…Given that we were not able to confirm the presence of a parent/guardian, we conservatively estimated noncompliance based on the presence of more than one passenger when no passenger was aged 35 or older. 19…”

Young driver enforcement within graduated driver licensing systems: a scoping review

“…Research by Curry et al (2017) looked at traffic citations issued to intermediate drivers involved in a crash who were not compliant with night or passenger restrictions and concluded that there are low levels of police enforcement for the night driving and passenger restriction. In Massachusetts, the rate of citations issued to new drivers fell after the introduction of the GDL system despite there being no change in the number of driver licences issued (DePesa et al, 2017).…”