Licensing Age Issues: Deliberations from a Workshop Devoted to this Topic

Abstract

Objective: To highlight the issues and discuss the research evidence regarding safety, mobility, and other consequences of different licensing ages.

Methods: Information included is based on presentations and discussions at a 1-day workshop on licensing age issues and a review and synthesis of the international literature.

Results: The literature indicates that higher licensing ages are associated with safety benefits. There is an associated mobility loss, more likely to be an issue in rural states. Legislative attempts to raise the minimum age for independent driving in the United States—for example, from 16 to 17—have been resisted, although in some states the age has been raised indirectly through graduated driver licensing (GDL) policies.

Conclusions: Jurisdictions can achieve reductions in teenage crashes by raising the licensing age. This can be done directly or indirectly by strengthening GDL systems, in particular extending the minimum length of the learner period.

Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Traffic Injury Prevention for the following supplemental resource: List of workshop participants.

Keywords:

• teens
• licensing age
• graduated driver licensing
• legislation

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Comments by Michele Fields and Robert Foss on an earlier version of this manuscript are gratefully acknowledged.