Practice Driving Study

This research, sponsored by the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development, assesses the factors that are important during the practice driving phase when a teenager is driving with a learner's permit. The study will be an observational study of the nine months of the learner's permit (practice driving) phase and then the first six months of independent driving. Driving skill and safety outcomes will also be assessed. The study will be conducted using our naturalistic data collection method and continuous data recording.

Previous research has shown that crash rates of novice teenage drivers are highly elevated during the first six months and 1000 miles of independent driving. The amount of supervised practice driving has not been carefully measured and little is known about the amount, nature, and timing of practice driving adolescents obtain prior to licensure. The purpose of the study is to determine the effect of greater and lesser amounts of supervised practice driving on the driving performance of newly licensed teens.

Teenaged participants will be recruited to participate just prior to obtaining their learner's permit. All participants will complete a series of questionnaires and surveys before and during their participation. A naturalistic method will be used, in which the participants' own vehicles will be instrumented with cameras, sensors, and radar. This instrumentation will be installed on the vehicle that the family indicates that most of the practice driving will occur in. Teenage driving will be recorded continuously during the nine month learner's permit phase of driving, and for six months after study participants receive their licenses. The cameras will be mounted unobtrusively in order to facilitate naturalistic driving behavior. The participants will be instructed to drive the vehicles as they normally would throughout the learner's permit and first six months of licensure phases, with a maximum of 18 months of data collection. Data will be downloaded regularly from the vehicles without requiring any special effort from the participants.

Study participants and their supervisors will not be instructed to practice in any particular way, however, the amount and variety of practice provided by the parent, as well as compliance with the state laws (45 supervised practice hours, 15 of which must be at night) will be analyzed. The first nine months of practice will then be compared with the driving outcomes in the first six months of independent driving.