Grandparents driving kids around might be safer than parents

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDJul 19 2011

According to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania found that kids who rode in cars with grandparents driving were less likely to get injured than kids riding with parent drivers. This is in spite of the fact that older drivers are more likely to be involved in crashes than younger ones.  The finding was unexpected, the team reported.

The researchers looked at State Farm insurance claims data and subsequent interviews regarding crashes that occurred from Jan. 15, 2003, to Nov. 30, 2007, involving 217,976 children 15 or younger. Injuries were reported for 1,302 kids.  Among those kids, 161 were driving with grandparents, resulting in an injury rate for grandparent drivers of 0.7%; while 2,293 were in the car with parent drivers, resulting in an injury rate for parents of 1.05%. That greater chance of injury existed even though parents were more likely to use child-safety restraints correctly, the team reported. The grandparents in this study ranged in age from 43 to 77, with an average age of 58. Parents ranged from 22 to 51, with an average age of 36.

“Isn’t this interesting? Maybe we’re not so bad after all,” said lead study researcher and two-time grandfather Dr. Fred M. Henretig, a pediatrician and emergency room physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. About the only key difference between grandparents and parents involved the proper use of car-safety seats. Nearly all children were restrained whether they rode with parents or grandparents. But about 25 percent of kids driving with grandparents weren’t restrained according to optimal practices, compared with about 20 percent of kids driving with parents, the study showed.

The reason behind this finding is unclear. Researchers suggested that the grandparents might be taking special pains to be careful when shuttling grandchildren. They write, “Perhaps grandparents are made more nervous about the task of driving with the "precious cargo" of their grandchildren and establish more cautious driving habits” which help the older drivers offset “perceptual deficiencies and problems judging and responding to traffic flow.” The researchers recommended that grandparents get even safer by learning how to correctly harness kids in the car, and that a non-grandparent learn how to emulate grandparents' protective driving practices.

Older drivers tend to “self-regulate” added Nancy Thompson, a spokeswoman for the AARP, which teaches safety classes to its age 50-plus members. That means older drivers may avoid freeways and peak traffic times, avoid driving at night or in bad weather, all factors that reduce crashes, she said. “If you’re uncomfortable, that means you have hesitation about how safe as drivers your parents are,” she said. “Adult children need to look for signs that their parents aren’t as safe as they were.”