In recent weeks the Wall Street Journal has featured a series of personal advice columns written jointly by its San Francisco bureau chief Steve Yoder and his college-bound, eighteen-year-old son Isaac. In one recent column, Steve offered advice to Isaac about how to succeed in college, while Isaac counseled his younger brother about how to succeed in high school. Isaac’s Point No. 8: “Obtain your driver’s license early and make use of it. It will extend your boundaries and your freedom.”
It’s hard to argue with that advice, isn’t it? What Isaac says is true. Getting a driver’s license is a major step from childhood to young adulthood. Having a license allows teens to travel to school and extracurricular activities, get and hold a job, explore new places, broaden their knowledge of geography, and gain new perspectives on where and how people live and work. And let us not forget or deny that having a license also enables teens the opportunity if not the freedom to break away from the real or imagined shackles that parents, police, and school administrators impose on them.
Without knowing, I assume that Isaac’s experience in getting his license was uneventful and a considerable source of pride to his parents, and probably a convenience in a family with a younger sibling who regularly needs transportation.
So, with all these allures and benefits in a teen getting a driver’s license, why did Isaac’s advice (which probably was read mostly by parents, since I doubt many teens read the Journal) make me shudder?
Because, unfortunately, there is no such thing as a safe teen driver. While “earlier” licensing eliminates boundaries and creates opportunities for education, employment and exploration, it also elevates the risk of a disabling or fatal crash.
Why? Because teen drivers, no matter how well-intentioned, trustworthy and respectful, schooled in safe driving laws, and thoroughly trained in how to safely operate a car, do not have and cannot obtain two essential elements of safe driving: a brain that quickly and accurately perceives and responds to risk and danger, and judgment to deal with fast-moving and ever-changing situations that every driver faces every time he or she gets behind the wheel. The brains of teens are not yet fully developed and, driving experts say, driving judgment requires three to five years of on-the-road experience.
Thus, the singular piece of advice that I offer to parents of teen drivers: yes, having your teen get a driver’s license “earlier” has many benefits, but don’t ignore, discount, or overlook the heightened risks.
In future posts I will delve in more detail into what every parent of a teen driver should know about the biology and chemistry of the underdeveloped brain of a teenager. I am not a doctor, scientist, or traffic safety professional, but here is the basic fact: In the brain, one chemical called dopamine stimulates needs and desires for excitement, and one called serotonin alerts the body to risk and prompts defensive actions. In the brains of teens, dopamine far outweighs serotonin. As one doctor has explained, dopamine is “the gas” and serotonin is “the brakes,” and teens are mostly gas and very little brake. Applied to driving, this chemical imbalance, which persists into the mid-twenties, means that teen drivers do not recognize hazards or assess the risk or danger in a car’s maneuver or in a complex traffic situation, and so their reactions are often late and their decisions poor. Only time and maturity, the completion of physical development of the brain and thousands of hours behind the wheel, can overcome these barriers to safe driving.
“Safe,” of course, is a relative term. All driving is risky. Statistics show unequivocally that drivers aged 35 to 49 are the safest; they have the lowest crash rates. Their brains are fully developed, their combination of experience and good reflexes is the best of any driver group, and they have the greatest personal and professional reasons to drive safely. Middle-aged drivers are safer, not safe. Teen drivers are at significantly greater risk.
In writing this blog, my goal is not to be a spoilsport or to deny the reality that for most teens and many parents, getting a license is a holy grail. I don’t deny that a driver’s license can help a teen with school, a job, maturity, and social development. But my advice to parents is to make sure that the benefits don’t distract or blind us from the risks of teen driving, which are immutable and substantial. Good parenting decisions about when to entrust a teen with car keys are those that balance the benefits with the risks.
