Linking Training Deficiencies to Risky Driving Behaviors and Roadway Safety Strategies for Teenage Drivers - PROJECT SUMMARY Motor vehicle crashes remain one of the most significant health threats for young adults, with teenage drivers disproportionately affected due to their lack of experience and inadequate driving training. Despite efforts by the Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to enhance driver training through Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) programs, the decline of public high school driving programs has left many teenagers reliant on parent-taught instruction, without consistent guidance or oversight from state agencies. This approach introduces critical limitations, including variability in instructional quality and insufficient exposure to complex, real-world driving conditions. We hypothesize that these training gaps contribute to behavioral vulnerabilities among teens, such as reduced safety awareness and increased risk-taking, that elevate crash risk. At the same time, we posit that enhanced roadway design and operational strategies can mitigate unsafe responses by improving young drivers’ hazard perception and decision-making in complex environments with proper training. Finally, we recognize that socioeconomic disparities in access to high-quality driver training and safe roadway infrastructure may further exacerbate these risks, particularly in low-income communities. To address these concerns, we propose a multi-component mixed-method experimental design comprising (a) behavioral surveys, (b) interviews, and (c) naturalistic driving data to assess how varying levels of driving training impact risk awareness and real-world driving performance among low-income teen drivers. Our innovative data-driven approach, leveraging historical crash data from the Texas Department of Transportation, identifies the most crash-prone, high-risk conditions (e.g., roundabouts, intersections, high-speed environments) to ensure ecological validity of this study. We will employ econometric modeling to assess how the breadth and depth of prior driver training through parental instruction correlate with risk awareness and unsafe driving habits. Our semi- structured interview will supplement the statistical analysis, capturing in-depth, contextualized insights into how adolescents acquire, interpret, and apply driving knowledge, and how these processes interact with household economic conditions to influence preparedness, confidence, and risk perception. We will also examine how those behavioral deficiencies translate into real-world driving behaviors through naturalistic driving from GPS tracking data. We will additionally test whether enhanced roadway designs and safety countermeasures effectively reduce risky responses to roadway hazards when combined with adequate training, using a high-fidelity driving simulation experiment. Using vehicle speed, vehicle position, and headway metrics, we will capture teen drivers’ real-time decision making, hazard perception, and visuomotor responses with and without safety features. Our findings will generate empirical evidence to inform policymakers on designing targeted educational strategies that emphasize real-world skill development and risk management, and on implementing roadway safety countermeasures that reduce crash risks and fatalities among teen drivers.
