Adolescent driver risk taking and driver education: Evidence of a mobility bias in public policymaking

Road traffic injury is the leading cause of death among adolescents in high-income countries. Researchers attribute this threat to driver risk taking, which driver education (DE) attempts to reduce. Many North American authorities grant DE graduates earlier access to unsupervised driving despite no evidence of this being a safety benefit. This theoretical article examines risk taking and DE in relation to an apparent mobility bias (MB) in policymaking. The MB is defined, the history and sources of driver risk taking are examined, and the failure of DE to reduce collision risk is analyzed in relation to a potential MB in licensing policies. The author argues that DE’s failure to reduce adolescent collision risk is associated with a MB that has produced insufficient research into DE programs and that influences public policymakers to grant earlier licensure to DE graduates. Recommendations are made regarding future research on DE and risk taking, coordinated improvements to DE and driver licensing, and a plan to reduce collision risk by encouraging parental supervision after adolescent licensure. Research on adolescent driver risk taking would have direct applications in DE curricula development, driver’s license evaluation criteria, graduated licensing (GDL) policies, as well as other aspects of human factor research into the crash-risk problem.