This editorial is about potential harm and actual harm, from a couple of different vantage points.

For example, widespread uneasiness at this time continues to focus on vaping. Questions and concerns about it have been on the minds of people young and not-so-young for about as long as vaping has existed, but numerous uncertainties about it still abound.

Reflect on how attitudes about traditional cigarettes have changed since a U.S. Surgeon General’s report about the dangers cigarette smoking poses was released 60 years ago.

Now, some public health experts have started to push for a surgeon general’s report on whether vaping is as safe or not-so-safe - dangerous - as some people believe.

An Associated Press article published in the Jan. 16 Mirror reminded readers that, based on available evidence, most scientists and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration agree that electronic cigarettes are far less dangerous than traditional cigarettes.

Nevertheless, those scientists and FDA officials don’t intend for that opinion to mean that e-cigarettes have been determined to be harmless, because such a determination has not been made.

A surgeon general’s report is what is seen, potentially, as their most valuable resource, for now.

Speaking about valuable resources, what if there was a resource enabling someone to determine how likely a young driver might be to crash? In fact, there now is such a resource, according to the Jan. 16 Wall Street Journal.

As with any concerns they might have about their sons and daughters vaping, many parents are more concerned about their children’s driving habits.

Wrote Julie Jargon in the Jan. 16 Journal:

“Many of us might think we can predict what kind of drivers our kids will be, but it’s impossible to know whether teens will brake too hard or steer straight when they finally are able to drive. Insurance companies have apps to track teen driving, but that information only comes after they’re on the road.”

According to Jargon, the resource mentioned is able to predict crash likelihood was developed by researchers of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, reportedly in response to the reality that driving is one of the most important health care issues for teenagers.

The newly developed tool, which researchers say is essentially a realistic car simulator, was found able to predict accurately crash risk in newly licensed drivers.

And researchers are not stopping there. This spring, they plan to study which interventions, such as behind-the-wheel training or online driver education, are most effective in helping teens improve driving skills.

The researchers hope to offer the virtual assessments in doctors’ offices around the country, where teens approaching driving age could take them as part of their annual checkups.

Already, however, researchers have offered the tests to doctors’ offices in Pennsylvania and parts of Connecticut and New Jersey, as well as to traffic courts in Ohio.

Researchers believe exposing young drivers to possible crashes is a good way to see how they react to real-life road crises. That is a logical conclusion.

Meanwhile, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drivers between the ages of 15 and 20 made up just 5% of all licensed U.S. drivers in 2021, but they accounted for 8.4% of fatal traffic crashes.

What can be learned from addressing these two long-unresolved issues effectively can help “pave” a road for solving other issues.

Altoona Mirror