Fatal Car Crashes Are Way More Likely With Teens Behind the Wheel -- But Is Inexperience Really to Blame?

"What we know from the field of neuroscience is that the brain is still developing through adolescence and into even the twenties," says Elizabeth Walshe, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania who recently published a study in JAMA Open Access. Although inexperience contributes to the higher crash rate, she says, her team found there was more to it: A certain kind of memory -- one that's crucial for safe driving -- may play an important role in reducing crash risk.