FACT SHEET

A DEADLY MIX - YOUNG DRIVERS AND LARGE TRUCKS

Why The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Should Reject a Proposal That Would Allow 18-20 Year Olds To Obtain A Commercial Driver License (CDL)

At present, the minimum qualifications for a person to drive a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) includes a requirement that the driver be at least 21 years of age. The FMCSA is considering a proposal to initiate a pilot program to allow individuals between the ages of 18 to 20 to obtain a CDL for the purpose of operating a commercial motor vehicle in interstate commerce. Essentially, the pilot program would require a minimum of 48 weeks of classroom and driving instruction before an individual could receive a license. The program breaks down into 22 weeks of truck driver training school, 8 weeks of a driver finishing program, and 18 weeks of team driving with a driver 25 years of age or older. Younger drivers would be required to pass the performance standards of the full program and reach the age of 19 before driving solo.

Despite driver education and training programs, research conclusively shows that this age group is overrepresented in motor vehicle crashes. The following facts illustrate the extreme danger and risks involved in allowing 18-21 year olds to drive commercial vehicles on our nation's roads and highways.

18 -20 Year Olds Are Higher Risk Drivers

• Specific studies of young commercial motor vehicle drivers show that large truck fatal crash involvement rates predictably and steadily increase with decreasing driver age. (University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, or UMTRI, 1989).

• If the minimum driving age for interstate truck drivers were lowered to 19 years of age from 21 years of age, 19 and 20 years old drivers would have up to 3 times the overall fatal crash rate for all truck drivers. (UMTRI, 1989).

• The general pattern of crash overinvolvement for young truck drivers controls every combination of factors studied by UMTRI, showing that the increasing crash involvement rate as the age of the young driver decreases is associated directly with age and not with other factors. (UMTRI, 1989).

• Drivers between the ages of 16-19 have the highest crash rates of all drivers overall. In fact, 16-19 year olds are 3 times more likely to be involved in fatal crashes and 3.3 times more likely to be involved in injury crashes. (Ferguson, S.A. et al., 1996).

• Motor vehicle death rates per 100,000 people peak for drivers between the ages of 18 and 19. (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety or IIHS Fatality Facts, 1999).

• All younger drivers are overinvolved in fatal crashes until about the age of 27. (UMTRI, 1989).

• Drivers under the age of 19 are overinvolved in fatal crashes by a factor of 4 and drivers between the ages of 19-20 are overinvolved by a factor of 6. (UMTRI, 1989; Williams, 1985).

• The highest motor vehicle death rate per 100,000 people is among 16-24 year old drivers and drivers over 80 years of age. (IIHS Fatality Facts, 1999).

• According to a survey, young drivers are often distracted by cell phones, CD players and radios, exhibit a lack of judgment behind the wheel, overestimate their driving ability and do not realize the serious consequences of driving a motor vehicle. (George Mason University Study, 2000).

• Young drivers are less likely to process information they need from the driving environment and they are less able to devote full attention to the driving task because adolescents do not have the emotional, mental and physical abilities of an adult. The prefrontal cortex, the site of judgment formation in the brain, does not fully develop until late teens, which profoundly affects the skills and abilities of young drivers. (George Mason University Study, 2000).

• A 1997-1998 study by University of Wisconsin economist, Kristen Monaco, found that 24% of truckers younger than 30 years old reported being in a crash compared to 12% of drivers over 30 years old. (LA Times, 2-23-01).

Driver Education Does Not Reduce Motor Vehicle Crashes

• Although controlling teenage driver exposure by raising the age for qualifying for an unrestricted license, limiting nighttime driving with curfews, and driving only when accompanied by an older adult, and other strategies help considerably to reduce the rates of teenager crash involvement, no study conducted over more than 30 years has demonstrated that driver education reduces either the rate or severity of their crash involvement. (Vernick et al. 1999).

• A large-scale DeKalb County project conducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s evaluated the effectiveness of comprehensive young driver education programs and was unable to show, even after nearly 20 years of data re-analysis, that driver education is associated with reliable or significant decreases in crash involvement. (Mayhew and Simpson, 1996).

• Studies in the U.S., Sweden, and Australia have shown that driver education courses produce no beneficial advantages in reductions in either the frequency or the severity of crash involvements. (Mayhew and Simpson, 1996).

• Young driver education usually enables teenaged drivers to gain unrestricted licenses at earlier ages when their risk of a violation or a crash is much higher than older drivers, and also encourages them to increase their exposure to crash involvement by driving more miles, longer hours, and more often at night at a younger age. (Vernick, 1999).