Distracted Driving Behaviors of Teens: Normative Social Influences

Introduction:  Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens’ and their crash rates are high relative to adult drivers.  Teens’ elevated crash risk is largely due to immaturity and inexperience.  Driver distraction likely compounds that risk. Distracted driving behaviors (DDBs) take drivers’ eyes off the road, hands off the steering wheel, and/or attention away from the driving task. Social norms likely influence the type and frequency of teens’ DDBs.  In particular, perceptions of parents and peers acceptance of, and participation in DDBs may strongly influence teen drivers’ behavior.  Such behavior on the part of parents and peers provides a model for teens’ actions.  Additionally, if teens perceive that they participate in DDBs less often than their parents and peers they might feel justified in increasing their own participation.  A better understanding of the social normative influences on engagement in DDBs is needed to devise effective interventions for teen drivers and their families.

Methods:  403 parent-teen dyads from a national sample were interviewed about their own DDBs, those of their parent/teen, and those of their friends/peers.  Teen drivers were 16-18 years old, lived with the responding parent, and were in or had recently graduated from high school.  Self-reported distracted driving was measured as the frequency (times per trip) at which respondents engaged in 16 DDBs.

Results:  90.6% of parents and 91.8% of teens reported regularly (at least once per trip) engaging in at least one of the 16 DDBs.  The most common for teens were: changing vehicle controls, drinking something, looking for something in the vehicle, searching for music on a portable music player, and dealing with passengers.  The most common behaviors for parents were: changing vehicle controls, drinking something, dealing with passengers, looking for something in the vehicle, and reading written directions.  Teens engaged in distracting behaviors more frequently than their parents (0.61±0.5 vs 0.46±0.3, p<.0001, t=5.21).  In addition, teens reported that their parents (1.76±0.5 vs 1.99±0.5, p<.0001, t=8.26) and peers (1.76±0.5 vs 2.45±0.7, p<.0001, t=21.16) participated in DDBs more frequently than they did; however, based on parents’ reports, teens over-estimated their parents’ distracted driving behavior (1.59±0.3 vs 1.99±0.5, p<.0001, t=14.86).  Finally, parents’ self-reports of their own frequency of distracted driving behavior was associated with that of their teens (r=0.22, p<.0001).

Conclusions:  Social norms and behavioral modeling play an important role in teen’s participation in DDBs.  Effective interventions should target these norms and their underlying mechanisms.