Parental perceptions of teen driving: Restrictions, worry and influence

Abstract

Introduction Parents play a critical role in preventing crashes among teens. Research of parental perceptions and concerns regarding teen driving safety is limited. We examined results from the 2013 Summer ConsumerStyles survey that queried parents about restrictions placed on their teen drivers, their perceived level of “worry” about their teen driver’s safety, and influence of parental restrictions regarding their teen’s driving. Methods We produced frequency distributions for the number of restrictions imposed, parental “worry,” and influence of rules regarding their teen’s driving, reported by teen’s driving license status (learning to drive or obtained a driver’s license). Response categories were dichotomized because of small cell sizes, and we ran separate log-linear regression models to explore whether imposing all four restrictions on teen drivers was associated with either worry intensity (“a lot” versus “somewhat, not very much or not at all”) or perceived influence of parental rules (“a lot” versus “somewhat, not very much or not at all”). Results Among the 456 parent respondents, 80% reported having restrictions for their teen driver regarding use of safety belts, drinking and driving, cell phones, and text messaging while driving. However, among the 188 parents of licensed teens, only 9% reported having a written parent-teen driving agreement, either currently or in the past. Worrying “a lot” was reported less frequently by parents of newly licensed teens (36%) compared with parents of learning teens (61%). Conclusions and Practical Applications Parents report having rules and restrictions for their teen drivers, but only a small percentage formalize the rules and restrictions in a written parent-teen driving agreement. Parents worry less about their teen driver’s safety during the newly licensed phase, when crash risk is high as compared to the learning phase. Further research is needed into how to effectively support parents in supervising and monitoring their teen driver.

Novice drivers and parents: exploring the feasibility of third-party policing in reducing young driver offending

“…Parents worry more about their new drivers when they are learning to drive and are under supervision compared to when they are newly licensed drivers and are more likely to crash (Jewett, Shults & Bhat, 2016). Another benefit of the introduction of a formal TPP framework is that it may clearly alert parents to the dangers present for their child when they first start to drive by themselves.…”

“…There is an implicit assumption that they will be involved in the GDL process (Glendon, 2013;Mayhew, 2003) and young drivers tend to operate a vehicle in a similar way to their parents (Schmidt, Morrongiello & Colwell, 2014;Strukcinsiene et al, 2014). Parents themselves believe that parental rules have a significant impact on the risk that a young driver will be involved in crash (Jewett, Shults & Bhat, 2016). Parental involvement appears to be influenced by the parenting style and practices that they used prior to the licensing processes (Laird, 2014).…”

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

“…Parents do intend on placing limits on their young drivers unsupervised driving (Hartos et al, 2004) and parents appear to be able to do this more effectively when a GDL system is in place (Hartos et al, 2005). One study suggested that 80% of parents have rules or restrictions for their learner or intermediate driver (Jewett et al, 2016) with a New Zealand study finding that when parents had low knowledge of GDL conditions their young driver was less likely to comply (Brookland et al, 2014). A review of parent involved teen driving interventions suggests that those based on theory and actively involving parents are more likely to be successful (Curry et al, 2015b).…”