Does parental support enhance the link between restrictions and adolescents' risky driving?

Parents' driving restrictions appear to reduce adolescent risky driving, which is associated with crash risk, yet the relational context in which parents impose restrictions may alter their effectiveness. Newly licensed adolescents (n = 151, Mage = 17.1 years, 53% female) and their parents (n = 174, 71% mothers) reported parenting style, driving restrictions, and risky driving behaviors. Concurrently, higher levels of parent-imposed driving restrictions were associated with lower levels of inexperience-based and volitional risky driving shortly after licensure. The associations were stronger in the context of high levels of parental support than in the context of low levels of parental support, particularly for boys. The associations also were stronger for inexperience-based risky driving than for volitional risky driving. Longitudinally, restrictions imposed shortly after licensure were not associated with inexperience-based and volitional risky driving one year later after controlling for risky driving shortly after licensure.