Could later Virginia school start times mean fewer teen car wrecks?

If you know a teenager, you know they like to sleep.  A lot.  This is normal – teens need at least 9 hours of sleep each night, sometimes more.  If they don’t get it, it can leave them unable to think clearly, delay their reaction times, and negatively affect their learning.  It can also make them more likely to cause car crashes.

Despite what sleep researches know about the effects of sleep deprivation on teenage brains, many Virginia high-schools start pretty early in the morning.  This has led researchers at the Eastern Virginia Medical School to examine crash data from teens enrolled at schools in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.

What did they find?  At high-schools that started class at 8:40am, student auto accident rates were 19.2 percent lower than high-schools that started class at 7:20am.

What does this mean for high-school students (and their parents!)  Researchers believe that later school start times may help teen drivers be more alert on the road, which could lead to fewer wrecks.  But don’t look for any quick changes – this research is preliminary, and more study is needed.

Given that car accidents are the number one killer of teenagers in the United States, anything that can be done to keep teens safe behind the wheel should be a priority.