Research under way to learn Kansas parent and teen driving issues

The Elliott School of Communication is interviewing parents and their teen drivers to learn more about how parents and teens feel about learning to drive in an unprecedented, independent research and education project.

“We hope to learn more about what parents and teens encounter in learning to drive and how they both feel about current and proposed licensing systems,” said James R. Hanni, executive vice president, AAA and spokesman for the AAA Kansas Traffic Safety Fund, one of the funders of the project.

Hanni indicated that research has been conducted in other states with both rural and urban populations but none in truly rural, Midwestern states. Kansas is one of only four states without a three-stage graduated driver licensing system, but research has been needed to determine what issues face parents and teens in both rural and urban settings.

Interviewers at Wichita State University are calling parents and teens that have completed the process of learning to drive in Kansas’ present licensing system.

“It is extremely important in the assessing the licensing process that we talk to as many parents and their teens as possible to understand as much as we can about the process they are experiencing in learning to drive,” said Les Anderson, professor in the Elliott School of Communication.

Calls are being made from the campus of The Wichita State University under the direction of Rebecca Nordyke, Interdisciplinary Communications Research Institute of the Elliott School, and will be completed in early December.  Results will be announced in early January. 

For more information, contact James R. Hanni at jhanni@aaa-alliedgroup.com or Les Anderson at les.anderson@wichita.edu.