Emergency Braking in Adults versus Novice Teen Drivers: Response to Simulated Sudden Driving Events

Motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death of teens in the United States. Newly licensed drivers are the group most at risk for such crashes. The driving skills of teen drivers are new and still often untested; therefore, their ability to react properly in an emergency situation remains a subject for research. Because it is not possible to expose human subjects to critical life-threatening driving scenarios, researchers increasingly have been using driving simulators to assess driving skills. This paper summarizes the results of a driving scenario in a study that compared the driving performance of novice teen drivers (n = 21) 16 to 17 years old with 90 days of provisional licensure with that of experienced adult drivers (n = 17) 25 to 50 years old with at least 5 years of Pennsylvania licensure who drove at least 100 mi per week and had experienced no self-reported collisions in the previous 3 years. As part of a 30 to 35 mph simulated drive that encompassed the most common scenarios that result in serious crashes, participants were exposed to a sudden car event. As the participant drove on a suburban road, a car surged from a driveway hidden by a fence on the right-hand side of the road. To avoid the crash the participant had to brake hard and demonstrate dynamic control over both attentional and motor resources. The results showed significant differences between the experienced adult and the novice teen drivers in the amount of brake pressure applied. When placed in the same situation, the novice teens decelerated on average 50% less than the experienced adults (p < .01).