Conceptual frameworks for developing and comparing approaches to improve adolescent motor-vehicle safety

This paper presents practical frameworks for developing and comparing approaches to improve adolescent motor-vehicle safety by merging concepts from the fields of developmental psychology and injury prevention and combining these with elements of a policy-analysis approach. Together, these models offer conceptual foundations for identifying intervention strategies to prevent crashes, reduce injuries in crashes, and reduce the long-term consequences of crashes and crash-related injury. In addition to helping generate ideas for interventions, the model can be used for making decisions about alternative interventions through consideration of value criteria such as effectiveness, cost, freedom, equity, stigmatization, preferences, and both technologic and political feasibility. Using these models, multidisciplinary groups concerned with youth development, engineering, law enforcement, education, and policy development can find common ground in addressing the complex issue of teen driving safety and develop, in a systematic and rational manner, approaches tailored to the circumstances and values of the settings in which they work.