摘要：Young drivers are overrepresented in road trauma and vehicle-related deaths, and there is substantial evidence for the effectiveness of graduated driver licensing (GDL) policies that minimize young drivers’ exposure to high-risk driving situations. However, it is unclear what role research plays in the process of making GDL policies. To understand how research is utilized in this context, we interviewed influential GDL policy actors in Australia and the United States. We found that GDL policy actors generally believed that research evidence informed GDL policy development, but they also believed that research was used to justify politically determined policy positions that were not based on evidence. Further efforts, including more effective research dissemination strategies, are required to increase research utilization in policy. Young drivers (aged 17-25 years) are overrepresented in road trauma, and vehicle-related crashes are a leading cause of death among young people. 1 , 2 Governments in many high-income countries, including Australia and the United States, have addressed this problem by developing graduated driver licensing (GDL) systems. 1 GDL systems minimize young drivers’ exposure to high-risk driving situations and may use any of a variety of policies, such as minimum age of licensing and speed limitations. Research has shown that such systems can be very effective in reducing crashes and injuries, although their effectiveness depends on the inclusion of several key factors. 3 Restrictions on night driving and on the ages of passengers are among the most effective ways to reduce crash involvement. 4 However, policymakers in many states and jurisdictions have opposed these restrictions for a number of political (e.g., electoral support) and ideological reasons, and because of concerns regarding the legitimacy of using evaluations from other jurisdictions to determine appropriate policies. 5 Such widespread governmental opposition to these restrictions indicates that, despite the prominence of evidence-based arguments in GDL policy discourse, 6 the creation of policy is mediated by a variety of other factors that have nothing to do with evidence. An approach to policymaking that utilizes technical rationality and is based on evidence would strive to make effective use of scientific research, the better to maximize the societal benefits resulting from policy implementation. 7 However, policies in various public sectors throughout the world are infrequently based on research evidence. 7 – 10 This discrepancy has been identified as a serious issue demanding urgent attention. 11 Such disparity between the rhetoric and the reality of evidence-based policy has generated a body of literature aiming to increase the transparency of policymaking processes by identifying factors preventing 12 and facilitating 13 research utilization. These findings have been pooled into a number of significant reviews, 7 , 14 , 15 and on the basis of these reviews several frameworks have been developed to explain research utilization in policymaking.16– 19 The diversity of these frameworks demonstrates the difficulty of understanding this complex phenomenon and articulating explanations that may be applicable to different policy contexts. To our knowledge, no study to date has examined research utilization within the context of road-safety policy or novice-driver policy, despite such a study's potential to identify critical points of resistance to evidence-informed policies and to reveal strategies to encourage their adoption. We aimed to fill this knowledge gap by seeking out individuals involved in GDL policy and asking them their opinions regarding research utilization in GDL policymaking.
