Residing in a Driver Training Desert leads to Delayed Licensure: Investigating the Relationship between Accessibility to Driver Training and Young Driver’s Licensure

Abstract

It remains unclear whether teens living in neighborhoods with lower socioeconomic status and poorer access to driver training (i.e., Driver Training Deserts) have lower probabilities of taking training (DT) and securing a young driver’s license. Using a teen driver dataset in the Columbus, OH MSA, we found teens residing in DTDs have on average 25% lower probabilities of DT and licensure than teens in non-DTDs. There is spatial clustering of the probabilities of DT and licensure. Our findings are helping to inform the distribution of a scholarship program in Ohio that aims to improve access to DT for lower-income teens.