Brigham: Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of teenage deaths in the
United States and globally, and drowsy driving accounts for one out of
five of those deaths. Young people, who are especially vulnerable to
sleep deficiency, are responsible for most fatigue-related crashes. In
2007, a series of regulations for young drivers was introduced in
Massachusetts, which included more stringent penalties for unsupervised
nighttime driving by 16 and 17 year old novice drivers, and mandated
drowsy driving education. To evaluate the impact of these regulations
on teenage drivers, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH)
examined the rate of motor vehicle crashes in junior operators (16-17
years) compared to older age groups (18-19 years and 20 years or above)
in the one year prior to, and five years after implementation.
Using
data from police-reported crashes with property damage of more than
$1,000, and/or personal injury, from March 31, 2006 to March 30, 2012,
as reported by the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, researchers
analyzed separately the reduction in nighttime and daytime crash rates
following implementation of the amended Massachusetts graduated driver
licensing law. Researchers also integrated the number of active
motor-vehicle license holders by age recorded in March/April of each
year into their data analysis.
Results of the research, published
by Health Affairs in its June 2015 issue, found that the rate of crashes
involving fatal and incapacitating injury among drivers age 16-17
decreased by 40 percent after the regulations were enacted. Overall,
police-reported crashes decreased in these junior operators by 19
percent, and nighttime crashes decreased by 29 percent.
These
results demonstrated that the 2007 amendments to the graduated licensing
law for 16 and 17 year old drivers in Massachusetts, which included
increased penalties for violation of the restriction on unsupervised
nighttime-driving, speeding, and transporting young passengers, plus the
addition of drowsy driver education requirements, led to significantly
reduced crash rates in that population.
“We know that teenaged
drivers are more vulnerable to performance impairment due to sleep
deprivation than older people. Our research shows that restricting
unsupervised nighttime driving until age 18 years, with significant
penalties for violating the law, contributed to a significant reduction
in the crash rate in junior operators, and importantly, reduced crashes
that occurred at night, and those that caused serious injury,” said lead
author Shantha Rajaratnam, PhD, associate neuroscientist in the
Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at BWH and professor at Monash
University.
Because the natural tendency to sleep peaks at
night, coincident with the peak in sleep-related crashes, a key
provision of the recommended amendments involved stricter penalties for
violation of the nighttime (12:30 - 5:00 a.m.) driving restriction. The
penalties were increased from a maximum fine of $35 for the first
offense, and a fine of $75 to $100 for subsequent offenses to a 60-day,
180-day, and one-year license suspension for the first, second, and
third offenses, respectively, with required driver retraining for second
or subsequent offenses and a $100 license reinstatement fee for each
offense.
“The 40 percent reduction in fatal and incapacitating
injury crashes that we observed for teen drivers has been sustained for
five years following passage of this law. The steep decline of
nighttime crashes demonstrates that tough penalties for violations of
the nighttime driving restrictions for 16- and 17-year-old drivers are
effective for preventing crashes and injury among teen drivers,” added
Charles Czeisler, PhD, MD, FRCP, chief of the Division of Sleep and
Circadian Disorders at BWH and senior study author. Czeisler further
noted, “It has been encouraging to advise former Massachusetts State
Senator Richard T. Moore on the design of legislation to reduce drowsy
driving crashes among Massachusetts teenagers. Our data demonstrate
that the 2007 revisions to the Massachusetts Junior Operator Law have
prevented about 320 fatal and incapacitating injuries and 13,000 motor
vehicle crashes among Massachusetts teen drivers over the past eight
years.”