Volume 30, Issue 3: June, 2003

Abstract

Does Graduated Licensing Empower Parents to Place Greater Restrictions on Their Newly Licensed Teens’ Driving?

Kenneth H. Beck, PhD, Teresa Shattuck, PhD, Robert Raleigh, MD, and Jessica Hartos, PhD

This investigation sought to deter mine if Mary land’s new graduated licensing pro gram was associated with greater levels of parental involvement in, and restriction on, teens’ unsupervised driving. Separate samples of teens with pro visional licenses were interviewed by telephone before and after the new pro gram took effect. The findings indicated that teens in the new pro gram reported significant increases in the frequency of parental driving instruction and supervised driving during the permit phase. There were no differences in amounts of instruction or supervised driving after pro visional licensure. Also, teens in the new pro gram reported greater over all amounts of parental restriction on their driving; however, few specific restrictions showed increases. Programs that encourage parents to regulate, restrict, monitor, and super vise the driving privileges of their teens during their provisional period of licensure are recommended. Graduated licensing laws and pro grams benefit from specific behavioral interventions targeted to, and implemented by, parents.
.