The high crash rate of teenage drivers and the concomitant attention it is now receiving by the general public invites a broadening focus on research and evaluation activities. Although attention to teenage driving issues will continue to fall within the scope of Transportation Research Board’s (TRB’s) Operator Education and Regulation Committee (ANB30), an affiliated group devoted exclusively to teen driving is likely to be more effective in applying the expertise needed to guide local, state, and national efforts toward scientifically and conceptually sound interventions. This was the premise for the launching of the Young Driver Subcommittee in 2007. Research on teenage drivers has grown dramatically in the past decade, but there is still a great deal that needs to be learned. Many critically important questions have not been asked, let alone adequately addressed. Consequently, most present efforts to reduce teenage driver crashes are not grounded in scientific principles, lacking a conceptually sound approach, evidence of likely effectiveness, or both. A formal entity within TRB, whose explicit focus is to promote solid research on teen driving issues, can, and should, help to enhance the quality of the nation’s efforts to address teenage driver crashes. The subcommittee’s focus is limited to drivers younger than age 20. Its mission is to undertake activities designed to improve and extend research on the nature of teen driving, including broad social, psychological, cultural, and biological issues; teenage driver crash causation; the role of parents and peers in teenage driving; and the effective translation of broad scientific understanding into policies and programs to reduce teenage driver crash rates. The unifying goal of this subcommittee is to foster both conceptually and empirically informed programs and policies to reduce teenage driver crashes. This includes the following, more detailed objectives: * Promote the growth of high-quality research that is theoretically informed and that reflects a multidisciplinary approach toward the understanding and reduction of teenage driver crashes. * Reinforce efforts to develop a conceptual and empirical underpinning for continuing efforts to devise more-effective training approaches for beginning teenage drivers. * Reach out to researchers in academic settings to foster broader involvement in teenage driver safety research, to encourage new researchers to join the field, and to stimulate the training of new researchers. * Stimulate interest in funding for scientific research on teenage driver issues by national and state governments, philanthropic foundations, and the private sector. RB’s Transportation Research Circular E-C180: Motor Vehicle Crashes and Injuries Involving Teenage Drivers summarizes participants' discussions on teenage driving that took place at a workshop in 2008. (Author/publisher)
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