The Checkpoints Program, developed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIHCD), is centered on a voluntary agreement between parents and newly licensed young drivers that limits driving under dangerous conditions, including driving at night, with other teens in the car, during bad weather, and on high-speed roads. Newsletters and videos provide support to participants.

In a study of 420 parent-teen pairs who received either the Checkpoints materials or generic auto-safety information, researchers found that 44 percent of Checkpoints parents and 48 percent of teens reported adopting the agreement. Among these, 84 percent of parents and 72 percent of teens said they were still using the agreement after 3 months, and 73 percent of parents and 54 percent of adolescents said they were still using the agreement at 12 months. The comparison-group parents were less likely to set such limits.

Mothers maintained greater and longer-lasting limits than did fathers, and limits were greater and longer lasting for teenagers who were younger when
they received their licenses, according to NIHCD.

However, researchers were not able to determine if adopting the rules led to fewer crashes; a larger study is presently underway in Connecticut in hopes of drawing such a correlation.

"This study shows that parents who set reasonable limits on driving can reduce their newly licensed teens' exposure to risky driving conditions," said NICHD Director Duane Alexander, M.D.

The idea is to reduce risky driving until new drivers get enough experience under their belt to handle such situations. Automobile crash rates are especially high during the 12 months after teenagers get their licenses, and highest during the first six months or 1,000 miles of driving.

"The key is for parents to limit driving privileges during the months after teens get their licenses," said Bruce G. Simons-Morton, Ed.D., M.P.H, chief of NICHD's Prevention Research Branch. "After teenagers become accustomed, for example, to driving with friends in their car, or to driving at night, it's a lot more difficult to restrict such privileges."

The study appears in the March 2005 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

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