ABSTRACT

Developmental factors juxtaposed with contextual changes and influences that take place during the period of time when adolescents learn to drive result in greater vulnerabilities to risky driving and crashes. The developmental factors related to adolescent driving include physical, cognitive, and psychosocial maturation. The well-known risk factors for adolescents’ involvement in automobile crashes include lack of driver experience; risk taking (including speeding, reckless driving, and running red lights); distractions from road rules and safety concerns (e.g., influence of passengers, cell phones, texting, or radio use); substance use; night driving and driving when fatigued; and improper use or nonuse of restraint devices. Understanding how developmental factors contribute to adolescent driving risk will help us better understand and promote safe driving, including understanding adolescent crash risk. Further, there is a need for reasonable cultural and social norms to combine to set a standard of expectation that leads to safe driving habits and practices. In this chapter, we describe the physical development, including brain maturation, that occurs throughout adolescence and into young adulthood. We then discuss adolescents’ cognitive and psychosocial maturity, both of which influence and are influenced by adolescents’ physical development. We end with a discussion of social factors, including peers and parents, that influence development and influence the relationship between development and driving-related decision making.