Starting school late reduce car crashes, improve teen safety

New York: Parents and teachers, please take note. Researchers have found that later school start times were associated with a significant drop in vehicle accidents involving teenage drivers.

For the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, the research team analysed motor vehicle accident statistics involving adolescents in Fairfax County, Virginia, the US, for two school years before and after the implementation of later school start times. The research showed that the crash rate in 16-to-18-year-old licensed drivers decreased significantly from 31.63 to 29.59 accidents per 1,000 drivers after the delayed start time. In contrast, the teen crash rate remained steady throughout the rest of the state.

"We know from independent data sources that after a change in school start times students get more sleep, which leads to multiple benefits, not just for individuals but also in terms of huge economic implications," said study senior author Judith Owens from Boston University in the US.

Teenagers who get more sleep are less likely to make poor decisions such as not wearing a seat belt or engaging in distracted driving," explained Owens. "One of the potential mechanisms for this reduction in car crashes is a decrease in behaviours that are related to risk-taking," Owens added.

The study compared motor vehicle crash rates among adolescents in the differing school start times in Fairfax County, which in the fall of 2015 pushed back school start times by 50 minutes from 7:20 a.m. to 8:10 a.m.

Data also were compared to teenage crashes in the rest of the state, where school start times did not change. The analysis also found that the later school start time was associated with a lower rate of distraction-related accidents.