Motor Vehicle Injury, Mortality, and Hospital Charges by Strength of Graduated Driver Licensing Laws in 36 States

Injury mortality, hospitalizations, and related charges for 15-17 year olds were examined by graduated driver licensing (GDL) legislation strength in 36 states in order for the relationship between motor vehicle (MV) injury burden and graduated driver licensing (GDL) laws to be assessed. Data sources included to 2003 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Kids' Inpatient Database and the Center for Disease Control's Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System. There was no weighting of hospital admissions for injuries in 15-17 year olds (n = 49,520). The International Classification of Injury Severity Scores and ICDMAP-90 were used to assess injury severity. In order to categorize legislative strength as none, marginal/poor, fair, or good, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rating system was utilized. Of all-cause injury-related hospital admissions, 14.6% resulted from MV injury, with 47.7% classified as drivers. After GDL enactment, there was 1.6% lower total MV occupant mortality, with observation of greater improvement in the good law category (26.0%). In 16 year olds, all GDL law categories were protective for MV driver injury, in multivariate hospitalized injury models. There was more frequent passenger than driver injury among black and Hispanic teens when compared to whites. There was a 16.0% lower MV occupant contribution to all-cause injury-related hospital charges in good versus no GDL categories. For MV drivers, the rate was 39.5% lower. It is suggested by these findings that any GDL legislation presence is associated with lower MV-related injury and expenditure burdens with the largest differences observed for 16-year-old drivers.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00225282
• Authors:
  • Pressley, Joyce C
  • Benedicto, Camilla B
  • Trieu, Lisa
  • Kendig, Tiffany
• Publication Date: 2009

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp S43-S53
• Serial:
  • Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection and Critical Care
  • Volume: 67
  • Issue Number: 1
  • Publisher: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
  • ISSN: 0022-5282

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Adolescents; Crash injuries; Crash injury research; Driver licensing; Drivers; Expenditures; Fatalities; Graduated licensing; Laws; Motor vehicles; Vehicle occupants
• Uncontrolled Terms: Hospital charges; Hospitalization
• Subject Areas: Highways; Law; Safety and Human Factors; Society; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01139293
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 31 2009 9:27AM