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Abstract
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Earning a driver's license has historically been described as a rite of passage for young people, signifying a key transition toward greater independence, but the freedom to drive unsupervised also marks the time period when crash rates among young drivers are at their highest. Prior research has shown an emerging trend of later licensure, such that young people are earning driver's licenses at older ages and that sociodemographic factors such as being a member of a racial minority group and having lower family economic status contributed to later licensure. Factors that place teens at a disadvantage for independent mobility can be concerning if they have a negative downstream effect. A delay in licensure that perpetuates or otherwise confers health inequities is problematic. In addition, delaying long enough to "age-out" of graduated driver licensure provisions (i.e., age 18 years) may take away needed protection.
In a new study among emerging adults, Gao and colleagues found that promptly moving through licensure (i.e., not delaying licensure) was associated with "better self-reported health, higher education, and more working hours four years after leaving high school," compared with emerging adults who were not licensed as soon as they were age-eligible, even after adjusting for important sociodemographic variables. The analyses did not explicate why teens delayed or how long they delayed for or speak to bidirectional associations. For example, it may be that young people with greater self-determination, trait-level conscientiousness, and opportunity identified that they needed a license to achieve their goals, earned it, and this underlying motivation also "drove" them onward to other opportunities that beget positive outcomes like good health. Or it could be the independent license afforded them with critical mobility they needed to connect with resources like healthcare or other assets to positive health outcomes they could not otherwise access. Of course, these explanations are not mutually exclusive, and illuminating these (or other) processes is an important avenue for future research.
Importantly, just because a transition in transportation-related milestones can happen does not mean it has to occur right at the moment of legal eligibility. Consider the analogous scenario of the transition of a child in a rear-facing child restraint system to a forward-facing five-point restraint, later to a booster seat, and from there to an adult safety belt. A U.S. state law may allow a transition out of a particular child restraint system at a given age; for example, a law may require children under age 2 years to be restrained in a rear-facing child restraint system. However, best practice recommendations are to keep a child in a system longer up to the age of 4 years and until they grow out of the child restraint system. Families are known to deviate from state child passenger safety laws because of practical concerns, the child's behaviors, or caregivers' safety-conscious behaviors. Similar processes are likely underway for adolescents and emerging adults negotiating the licensure pathway whereby the practicalities of day-to-day life and human behavior do not always align with one-size-fits-all policies.
The interactions between individual differences and contextual factors are complex and highly heterogeneous...
Language: en |