WASHINGTON – By most physical measures, teenagers should be the world’s best drivers. Their muscles are supple, their reflexes quick, their senses at a lifetime peak. Yet, car crashes kill more of them than any other cause – a problem, some researchers believe, that is rooted in the adolescent brain.
A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25, a finding with implications for a host of policies, including the nation’s driving laws.
“We’d thought the highest levels of physical and brain maturity were reached by age 18, maybe earlier – so this threw us,” said Jay Giedd, a pediatric psychiatrist leading the study, which released its first results last April. That makes adolescence “a dangerous time, when it should be the best.”
In January, Republican Virginia state Sen. William Mims cited brain development research in proposing a Virginia bill that would ban cell phone use in vehicles for drivers younger than 18. It passed Friday.
In Maryland, delegates Adrienne Mandel and William Bronrott said the research could bolster three bills the Montgomery County Democrats submitted to the legislature Friday. The bills would expand training and restrict passenger numbers and cell phone use for certain teenage drivers.
The measures also are supported by crash statistics and a soon-to-be released study from Temple University, which used a driving-style test to show that young people take greater risks consistently when their friends are watching.
Critics of brain-imaging research – and Giedd himself – emphasize that there is no proven correlation between brain changes and behavior. Giedd, however, said that the duration and depth of the study means “it’s time to bring neuroscience to the table” in the teen driving debate.
At Temple University in Philadelphia, psychology professor and researcher Laurence Steinberg plans a new study: scanning teen-agers’ brains while they perform a task that simulates driving decisions, in an effort to understand the biological underpinnings of risk-taking among young people.
Giedd intends to pursue similar studies with his subjects.
Teenagers are four times as likely as older drivers to be involved in a crash and three times as likely to die in one, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
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