Grant: Café Scientifique Program-Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health

Road crashes are the third-leading cause of death among young people aged 15 to 24 years old in Canada. Youth and young adults are also killed in road crashes at a higher rate than any other age group under 75 years old (Statistics Canada, 2020). Furthermore, young people account for 25 per cent of all road-related injuries and fatalities even though they only make up 13 per cent of licensed drivers in Canada. Road crashes are a serious threat to the wellbeing and quality of life of youth in Canada. Co-led by the Canadian Youth Road Safety Council, the For Young Drivers, By Young Drivers project aims to effectively address the issue of road fatalities among youth by partnering with this demographic to: understand the facilitators, barriers and attitudes/perceptions that affect safe driving behaviours in young drivers; identify new opportunities and channels for increasing youth awareness of road safety issues, with a specific focus on technology and communications solutions and; build a framework and tools that will guide engagement of young drivers and their passengers. Informed by published research and other successful youth outreach efforts, almost 300 youth across Canada were engaged via focus groups, peer-to-peer interviews, and surveys to understand their thoughts on how they think and feel about safe driving behaviours, how they behave, what influences their behaviours, who influences their behaviours and where they go for trusted information on road safety. A dozen experts in road safety and youth engagement were also interviewed. Key learnings were complied into a framework and tools to provide road safety stakeholders with promising practices for engaging young people in road safety programming.