High rate of teen car crashes may be caused by immature brain

This is not original reporting. All information has been compiled from the article "Brain Immaturity Could Explain Teen Crash Rate” in The Washington Post.

Researchers believe that the adolescent brain may be the cause of the high rate of car crashes among teenagers, according to a recent article in The Washington Post. A National Institutes of Health (NIH) study suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully developed until age 25.

Jay Geidd, the pediatric psychiatrist leading the NIH study, as well as his team members, was shocked by the results. "We'd thought the highest levels of physical and brain maturity were reached by age 18, maybe earlier, so this threw us,” said Geidd.

According to the Institute for Highway Safety, teens are four times as likely as older drivers to be involved in a crash and three times as likely to die in one.

This new research from NIH could strengthen three bills submitted to the legislature by the Montgomery County Democrats on Jan. 28. The bill would place restrictions on cell-phone usage and large numbers of passengers for all teen drivers as well as expand training, according to the Washington Post. Already in the state of Virginia, a bill was passed to ban cell-phone usage for teens while they are driving, and new brain development research was cited in the bill proposal.

A study from Temple University, which will soon be released, used a driving-style test to prove that young people are more likely to take risks when their friends are around. Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor and researcher at Temple, plans a new study that would scan teenagers' brains while they carry out a task that simulates driving decisions. Giedd also wants to pursue a study that would give teens and their parents and guardians more ways of beating the odds. These tests will hopefully help researchers gain a biological understanding of risk-taking amongst teens, reported The Washington Post.