Abstract
In the United States, motor vehicle crashes are the leading reason of fatalities for young drivers in the age group of 16–19 years. This paper used naturalistic driving study (NDS) data to examine the safety of young drivers. The NDS data consist of comprehensive information related to driving behavior. The statistical modeling method (logistic regression) was used to investigate the relationship between factors of driver attention such as secondary tasks, impairments, hands on wheel, and crash risk to aid in the formulation of teen driving policy. The results indicated that nondriving tasks engagement such as cell phone use, external distraction, food and drink intake, personal hygiene, and reaching and handling objects in the vehicle increase the possibility of involvement in a safety critical event [odds ratio ]. Risk estimation for the observable impairments indicated that emotional state of the driver () and impairments (drugs/alcohol, ) exerted greater influence on crash likelihood compared to involvement in secondary tasks. The study revealed that not all secondary tasks pose the same risk. Transportation agencies can design behavioral countermeasures targeted at young drivers to help increase driver attention. Countermeasures such as increased enforcement, treatment and monitoring of the offender, and education and outreach programs for teenagers may help alleviate impaired driving.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code used during the study were provided by a third party. Direct requests for these materials may be made to the provider as indicated in the Acknowledgments.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by Federal Highway Administration through a SHRP 2 Broad Agency Announcement Program. The project manager was Mr. Charles Fay.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 149 • Issue 1 • January 2023
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 31, 2021
Accepted: Sep 2, 2022
Published online: Oct 25, 2022
Published in print: Jan 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Mar 25, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Age factors
- Analysis (by type)
- Business management
- Data analysis
- Driver behavior
- Engineering fundamentals
- Freight transportation
- Infrastructure
- Logistics
- Mathematics
- Methodology (by type)
- Practice and Profession
- Regression analysis
- Research methods (by type)
- Statistical analysis (by type)
- Statistics
- Traffic accidents
- Traffic engineering
- Traffic management
- Traffic safety
- Transportation engineering
- Workplace diversity
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