Objectives: To determine the nature and prevalence of parental involvement with teen driving and its relationship to teen driving risk.
Methods: A statewide sample of 424 Maryland parents and their provisionally licensed teenagers were interviewed.
Results: Parents were unaware of the extent to which their teens had engaged in high-risk traffic events, such as being distracted by friends or driving too fast. Teens who were allowed unsupervised access to a car at least several times a week were 3 times as likely to have driven too fast than were those who had access once a month or less. The frequency of parental teaching of driving skills was not strongly related to teen risk taking.
Conclusion: The need to increase parents' capacity to impose and enforce driving restrictions on provisionally licensed teen drivers is indicated.