The association between kinematic risky driving among parents and their teenage children: Moderation by shared personality characteristics

• Correlation of parent–teen risky driving was examined under naturalistic conditions.
• Parent–teen risky driving was modestly correlated for the first six months of driving.
• Similarities in parent–teen risky driving were partly explained by shared personality.

This study examined the driving behavior of 42 parent–teenager dyads for 18 months, under naturalistic driving conditions. At baseline participants’ personality characteristics were assessed. Objective risky driving measures (kinematic risky driving) were captured by accelerometers for the duration of the study. To estimate teenage and parent correlations in kinematic risky driving, separate Poisson regression models were fit for teenagers and parents. Standardized residuals were computed for each trip for each individual. Correlations were obtained by estimating the Spearman rank correlations of the individual average residuals across teenagers and parents. The bootstrap technique was used to estimate the standard errors associated with the parent–teenager correlations. The overall correlation between teenage and parent kinematic risky driving for the 18-month study period was positive, but weak (r = 0.18). When the association between parent and teenagers’ risky driving was adjusted for shared personality characteristics, the correlation reduced to 0.09. Although interesting, the 95% confidence intervals on the difference between these two estimates overlapped zero. We conclude that the weak similarity in parent–teen kinematic risky driving was partly explained by shared personality characteristics.