Risk evaluation, driving, and adolescents:: A typology

High road injury rates among young people throughout the world have prompted considerable research on what features of adolescence may contribute to this major public health issue. Widely divergent explanations, such as "risk-taking" attitudes, problems with risk perception, and the need to fulfill key developmental tasks, have been explored, but have not been systematically integrated. In order to provide such an integration, a typology is presented that outlines five psychological "risk states" that may be experienced by adolescent drivers. Two of these are considered desirable from a traffic safety viewpoint: habitually cautious driving and active risk avoidance. The others are undesirable: reduced risk perception, acceptance of risk as a cost, and risk seeking. Research on the relationship of these states to age and gender is outlined. Possible traffic safety interventions and implications for further research are presented. (C) 2000 Academic Press.