Barriers to Early Licensure May Widen Teen Traffic Safety Disparities

Study Links Delayed Driver’s Licensing to Missed GDL Safety Training

August 10, 2026

By:

Hoag Levins

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All 50 states and the District of Columbia have adopted Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) systems to provide driving safety training for teenagers younger than 18. People who apply for driving permits after they are 18 don’t get the training — and tend to have more auto crashes.

Teenagers growing up in lower-opportunity neighborhoods are nearly as eager to drive as their peers in more affluent communities, but they are far less likely to become licensed before age 18—a delay that may cause many to miss the extensive training and safety protections built into state Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) programs, according to a new Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia research letter authored by several LDI Senior Fellows.

Published in JAMA Pediatrics, the paper suggests that delayed licensure may mean these teenagers miss the protections of GDL because most GDL laws apply only to new drivers younger than 18.

LDI Senior Fellow Stephanie Mayne, PhD, Team Leader

Fewer Crashes

Although the new study did not examine crashes, it fits into a growing body of research from the same CHOP investigators suggesting that adolescents from disadvantaged neighborhoods often obtain licenses after aging out of GDL requirements. Previous studies by the group found that drivers who receive comprehensive GDL training have fewer crashes—including substantially fewer serious injury crashes—than those first licensed after age 18, raising concerns that barriers to early licensure may also represent a traffic safety disparity.

Among teens who said they intended to drive, only about 32% of those from the lowest-opportunity neighborhoods had obtained a learner’s permit or driver’s license by ages 17-18. More than 91% of teens from the highest-opportunity neighborhoods had done so.

Although the GDL concept originated in the 1970s, it gained national momentum in the mid-1990s when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the National Safety Council (NSC), and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) jointly developed an evidence-based national model for states to follow in their individual GDL programs.

Three-Stage Training

The program is a three-stage licensing system designed to reduce crashes among new teenage drivers by allowing them to gain driving experience under progressively less restrictive conditions. Rather than granting full driving privileges immediately, GDL programs typically begin with a supervised learner’s permit, followed by an intermediate license that limits high-risk situations, such as nighttime driving and carrying young passengers, before culminating in an unrestricted license.

Both NHTSA and IIHS note that research has consistently shown that Graduated Driver Licensing programs reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities among novice drivers by allowing them to gain experience under supervision and by limiting exposure to high-risk driving situations until they develop greater driving skills and maturity. They report that GDL programs are “associated with a 38% reduction in fatal crashes and a 40% reduction in injury crashes among 16-year-old drivers.”

Researchers analyzed health questionnaires completed by more than 6,000 adolescents receiving care through the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia primary care network in southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. They compared teens living in neighborhoods with different levels of opportunity, as measured by the Childhood Opportunity Index, a tool that considers factors such as education, housing, environmental conditions, and economic resources.

Latest in a Series

The research letter is the latest in a series of CHOP studies since 2022 examining how neighborhood opportunity and socioeconomic factors influence whether teenagers obtain their licenses early enough to benefit from GDL safety protections.

“Other CHOP research has found higher rates of all crashes and injury crashes among Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black drivers in New Jersey, as well as drivers from lower-opportunity neighborhoods using the same Childhood Opportunity Index measure,” said Mayne. “These disparities are likely due to a combination of factors, including lower access to driver training and historic disinvestment in safe infrastructure.”

The research team included Stephanie Mayne, PhD, MHS; Brian P. Jenssen, MD, MSHP; Flaura K.Winston, MD, PhD; Alexander G. Fiks, MD, MSCE; and Xiaoxia Dong, PhD, MCP.