The Role of Supervised Driving Requirements in a Graduated Driver Licensing Programs

Many States require parents to certify that their teens have completed a certain amount of supervised driving practice, usually 40 to 50 hours, before they are permitted to obtain an intermediate license. Although strongly supported by numerous groups and organizations, the effectiveness of supervised practice requirements is unknown. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted a cross-sectional comparison of fatal crash rates throughout the United States, and examined State crash data using interrupted time-series analysis in a small number of States that had increased their required number of supervised driving hours. To supplement and provide insight into these findings, the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center conducted telephone interviews, funded by State Farm Insurance, with parents of newly licensed teenage drivers in 5 States (Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina, and Washington) with varying supervised driving requirements. Employees of licensing bureaus in these States were also contacted by telephone to determine how they conveyed the requirements to parents and teenagers. Analyses of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) showed that fatal crash rates of 16- and 17-year-olds did not differ across States with varying supervised driving requirements. Crash analyses in Minnesota, the only State to change the number of required practice hours without changing other Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) components, did not find any difference in 16- and 17-year-old-driver fatal or serious injury crash rates following the change in the requirement. Interviews with parents and licensing officials showed that awareness of the supervised driving requirements was weak in all 5 States. Only 32% of parents overall (range 15% to 55%) could correctly identify the number of hours required by their State. Almost all parents in Maryland (91%) reported using a log provided by the licensing agency to keep track of their teens’ driving and about half of Maryland parents correctly reported the number of required supervised hours. With low parental awareness and little or no licensing agency verification, it is difficult to determine whether teenagers drove the minimum number of supervised hours required by their States. These findings suggest that improvements in communications with parents and novice drivers about supervised driving requirements, guidance to parents about the best techniques to provide supervision, and tracking actual hours and conditions of supervised driving would be beneficial.