Life in the teen lane

WASHINGTON – A teenage boy driving with another teenage boy is more likely to speed and tailgate than when he drives alone. But put a teenage girl in the car and he’ll slow down.

The fix isn’t so simple for teenage girl drivers, however, according to a federal study released Friday. Girls drive faster whether the passenger’s a guy or girl than they do alone. Teen males with teenage male passengers were also more likely to tailgate, leaving an average of about one car length less room in front of them at 40 mph than when alone. The study involved 471 teenage drivers on public roads.

The perils of teen passengers don’t surprise Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, an insurer-funded research group that seeks to reduce accident rates.

“When you have a teen passenger in the vehicle with a teen driver, the risk of a crash is twice as high,” Rader said. “If you have two or more teen passengers in a vehicle the risk can be five times as high.”

The study, by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development involved 471 teenage drivers on public roads.