Attitudes toward accompanied driving: The views of teens and their parents

In Israel, a new driver must be accompanied by an experienced driver for the first 3 months after licensure. In the case of teens, the accompanying driver is usually one of the parents. However, no previous study set to examine the relationship between parents’ and offsprings’ attitudes toward accompanied driving (ATAD), and the associations between the way parents habitually drive and their offsprings’ ATAD. The current study examined the associations between young drivers’ ATAD on the one hand, and parents’ ATADs, driving styles, and driving history, on the other. One hundred and twenty-nine young drivers completed a questionnaire assessing their ATAD, and their principal accompanying driver completed the same ATAD scale along with the Multi-dimensional Driving Style Inventory. The findings indicate a correspondence between parents’ and children’s ATAD scores, as well as significant associations between teens’ ATADs and their parents’ driving styles and involvement in car crashes. Specifically, higher Tension, Relatedness, Avoidance, Disapproval, and Anxiety reported by the young driver were positively correlated with higher reports on the same attitudes by parents. In addition, parents’ maladaptive driving styles were positively associated with their offspring’s Tension, Avoidance, Disapproval and Anxiety ATADs, whereas parents’ careful driving style was related to offspring’s higher relatedness and lower negative ATADs. Higher involvement of parents in car crashes contributed significantly to teens’ higher Tension, Disapproval, and Anxiety, and lower relatedness. The results are discussed in respect to the relationship between the parental model and the young driver’s attitude toward accompanied driving, pointing to the importance of parents’ role in promoting young drivers’ safety attitudes and behaviors.