Continued Evaluation of the Arkansas Graduated Driver License

The Graduated Driver License (GDL) law, passed in 2009, expands the previous teen driving law to improve the safety of the roadways for all drivers by placing strategic restrictions on when and with whom Arkansas teens may drive. The first evaluation of the GDL was conducted in 2012. Initial results showed a significant reduction in fatal crashes among teens when comparing crash data from one year prior to enacting the GDL (2008) with data one year after it was passed (2010). The current evaluation builds on these prior findings by broadening the examination timeframe to include 2007 through 2008 and 2010 through 2011 data in order to assess whether improvements to teen driver safety have continued. The research brief provides a general overview of the GDL provisions, a description of the data and methods used for the evaluation, and a summary of the results.