[Updated (10/12/09): sponsor of study changed from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). The CDC only provided statistics to the article--author]

The September 28, 2009 ABC News article “Teens With Cars Are Twice as Dangerous,” states that “rules and supportive parenting can reduce the risk of crashes.”

The CIRP (at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) study, in collaboration with State Farm Insurance, found that teenagers with the most access to cars—those that have their own car—have increased risk of being in an accident.

In fact, teens that are in possession of their own car are twice as likely to be involved in a car crash as teenagers that share a car with a parent.

The study found that 70% of the teenagers participating in the study said they were the primary driver of a car.

The summary of research performed by the CIRP researchers was published in the September 28, 2009 issue of the journal Pediatrics.

The article is entitled “Associations Between Parenting Styles and Teen Driving, Safety-Related Behaviors and Attitudes” (volume 124, number 4, October 2009, pages 1040-1051, DOI: 10.1542/peds.2008-3037).

Its U.S. authors are: Kenneth R. Ginsburg, Dennis R. Durbin, J. Felipe García-España, Ewa A. Kalicka, and Flaura K. Winston.

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The researchers used the 2006 National Young Driver Survey, which gathered data on the behavior of 5,665 high school students in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades.

Based on the information from the students, parenting style was divided into four groups: (1) authoritative (high support and high rules/monitoring), (2) authoritarian (low support and high rules/monitoring), (3) permissive (high support and low rules/monitoring), and (4) uninvolved (low support and low rules/monitoring).

The study found 50% of the parents were authoritative (high support and high rules/monitoring), 23% were permissive (high support and low rules/monitoring), 19% were uninvolved (low support and low rules/monitoring), and 8% were authoritarian (low support and high rules/monitoring).

Teenagers with “uninvolved” parents were (1) twice as likely to have had accidents within the past year when compared to teenagers with “authoritative” parents.

In addition, teens with “authoritative” parents were (2) 71% less likely to drive while drunk and (3) less likely to use a cell phone while driving than teens with “uninvolved” parents.

Teens with “authoritative” or “authoritarian” parents also (4) used their seat belts almost twice as frequently and (5) drove excessively over the speed limit half as often as teens with “uninvolved” parents.

The researchers concluded, according to the abstract of their Pediatrics paper, “Clinicians should encourage parents to set rules and to monitor teens' driving behaviors, in a supportive context.”

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Dr. Flaura Koplin Winston, one of the authors of the study, stated in the ABC article: "Part of the very nature of being the primary driver of a vehicle is the impression that no one is keeping track of what you are doing as closely.”

Dr. Winston, the co-scientific director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), added, “But if a parent has to hand you the keys and asks, 'where are you going and who with,' that is crucial to the safety of early, inexperienced drivers."

The ABC article states that car accidents are “… the leading cause of death in 16- to 17-year-olds, claiming over 1,800 lives and injuring over 166,000 each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Dr. Winston, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, also commented on what she and her fellow-researchers learned about teenagers and their behaviors.

She stated, "A lot of things teens recognize already. They get that cell phones can increase risk. They get that passengers acting wild increases risk…. But they didn't recognize the role of inexperience. They pretty much thought that if they have a license, that means they are experienced."

In another study performed in 2007, and written up in the 7/13/2007 USA Today article "Many teens admit risky driving habits " found that "Teen drivers admit that they're prone to text messaging, talking on cellphones and hauling their friends around in the car."

The survery by the American Automotive Association (AAA) and Seventeen magazine concluded that, of the one thousand teenagers taking part of the April 2007 survey: "... young drivers engage in risky behavior behind the wheel, prompting safety advocates to call for parents to be more aware of what their kids are doing when they leave with the car keys."