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Reasons for driving while disqualified
REASONS FOR DRIVING WHILE DISQUALIFIED? CHRISTOPHER D. ROBINSON Department of Psychology. Swinburne College of Technology, Hawthorn, (Received
1I December 1978: in
revised form
Victoria 3122, Australia
I I June 1979)
Abstrart-A survey of disqualified drivers investigated the frequency of violation of the sanction and also reasons for violations. It was found that 34% of survey respondents admitted driving at some time during their disqualification, and that 40% of these offenders admitted driving more than 20 times while disqualified. The most common reasons for driving were “exceptional circumstances”, and business or employment reasons. Most of the respondents indicated that licence disqualification caused a significant disruption of their life styles.
Klein and Waller [1970] and Little [1972] have noted that both legislators and those responsible for implementing legal measures against driving offenders are generally reluctant to use the sanction of licence disqualification, and Baker and Robertson I19751have suggested that this reluctance is based on the “untested assumption” that unrestricted use of a motor vehicle is an economic necessity for most drivers. It can also be argued that withdrawal of the licence to drive will lead to social hardship. In an attempt to test the importance of motor vehicle use as a means of reaching the workplace, Baker and Robertson asked a sample of 450 people who customarily drove to work how they would reach their workplace if unable to drive due to having a leg in a cast. It was found that only 21% of the sampled drivers said that they could not make alternative travel arrangements to reach work, and those who felt that they could find alternative transport tended to believe that little additional time or cost would be involved. This evidence suggests that the need to drive in order to reach work should not be a major reason for driving while disqualified. The present study sought to find offenders’ reasons for driving while disqualified, and the relation between these reasons and their admitted frequency of driving while disqualified; in the present context the term of disquali~cation will be taken to include both suspension and revocation of the licence. The sample of disqualified drivers on which this study was based was drawn from the Australian state of Victoria which, in December 1975, had a population of approximately 3.7 million, a register of approximately 1.8 million motor vehicles, and 1.9million licensed drivers. As part of a large scale study of the effectiveness of Iicence disqualification as a sanction, a mail survey was conducted of all male drivers disqualified in Victoria during the three months from October 1st to December 31st, 1975; females and those disqualified for less than 48 hours were excluded from the sample because of the small numbers involved, and out-of-state drivers were also excluded. Respondents were asked to indicate whether or not they had driven while disqualified and to rate the disruption caused by their disqualification, and those who admitted driving while disqualified were further asked how many times they drove and their reasons for driving. A total of 1552 subjects responded, representing a response rate of 37.2%, and the median length of disqualification for the respondents was approximately three months. Comparisons of the respondents with those who did not respond revealed no systematic differences in terms of length of disqu~i~~tion, or type of offence committed. It was found that 34.4% of respondents admitted driving at some time during their period of disqualification. Table 1 shows the distribution of these subjects in terms of the number of times they admitted violating the sanction. It is noteworthy that approximately 40% of these subjects admitted driving more than 20 times while disqualified, and that a similar percentage claimed they drove on fewer than 5 occasions. tThe research reported here was supported by the Australian Government Department of Transport. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of the Department of Transport. Requests for reprints should be sent to Christopher D. Robinson, Department of Psychology, Swinburne College of Technology, P.O. Box 218, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122, Australia. 307
C. D. ROBINSON
308 Table
I. Admitted
frequency
of driving
whiledisqualified
ABSOLUTE
RELATIVE
FREQUENCY OXICe
FREQUENCY
86
15.8
125
22.9
5 to 10 times
75
13.7
11 to 20 times
40
1.3
Over
97
17.8
123
22.5
546
100.0
2 to 4 times
20 times
AS often
as usual
TOTAL
Table
2. Reasons
for driving
while disqualified
ABSOLUTE FREQUENCY
Business Family
or employment
or social
No public
transport
Exceptional Whenever
circumstances
transport
needed
only
(PCT.)
RELATIVE FREQUENCY
149
27.6
96
17.9
56
10.6
217
40.4
154
28.8
(PCT.)
Subjects were asked to indicate the purpose or purposes for which they drove while disqualified, and Table 2 shows the frequency with which various reasons were mentioned; it should be noted that some subjects indicated that they drove for a number of reasons, and consequently the percentages shown in Table 2 do not accumulate to 100%. The most frequent response was that subjects drove only in what they considered to be exceptional circumstances, and the next largest group indicated that they drove to fulfill all their regular transport needs. Business or employment reasons were indicated by only 27.6% of those who drove, a finding which is similar to that reported by Baker and Robertson [ 19751. The group consisting of those who drove whenever they needed transport is noticeably larger than the group shown in Table 1 consisting of subjects whose admitted frequency of driving was “as often as usual”, and further analyses indicated that some of the subjects who continued to drive their own vehicles to satisfy all their transport needs admitted relatively low frequencies of driving. Thus 27% of these subjects said they drove ten times or less, and only 52% said that they drove as often as they would have when they were licensed. It seems possible, then, that some subjects reconsidered their transport needs after they were disqualified, and only drove when they felt it was really necessary. Analyses of the frequencies of driving admitted by those who drove “only in exceptional circumstances” suggests that, for some of these subjects, a considerable number of exceptional circumstances presented themselves. It was found that 3% of these subjects admitted driving on five or more occasions, and 20% drove more than ten times. These rates of violation of the sanction can be considered as relatively high, given that the median length of disqualification was three months. Further, of the 217 subjects who indicated that they drove “only in exceptional circumstances”, 17.5% also said that they drove for business reasons, 14.4% also admitted driving for social reasons, and 8.4% also said that they drove whenever they needed transport. These subsidiary findings suggest that “exceptional circumstances” were not usually seen as implying emergency situations (in the strictest sense of that term) or isolated instances, but rather as circumstances where driving was considered to be the most suitable course of action, despite the imposed disqualification. Thus employment-related demands were more likely to be associated with “exceptional circumstances” than were social needs. Supplementary analyses indicated that the reasons given for driving were independent of the offender’s marital status or occupation, or whether he was a city or country dweller: each of the
Reasons
for driving
while disqualified
309
reasons was most commonly provided by offenders who were single, employed as skilled or unskilled workers, and who lived in a city environment. Subject’s age, however, showed some relation to the type of reason indicated, with those aged between 20 and 24 years most frequently indicating all reasons except those of business and employment; these fatter reasons were most frequently mentioned by subjects aged between 30 and 39 years or over 60 years. Subjects were also asked to rate the amount of disruption resulting from their disqualification. An eight point scale was provided for these ratings, but for the analyses this scale- was collapsed to provide three levels of perceived disruption: low, medium and high. Table 3 shows the numbers of subjects who indicated each of these levels of disruption. It is readily apparent that most subjects saw the sanction as producing a significant disruption of their fife styles. This finding is not altogether surprising, but it is interesting in the fight of comments made by Baker and Robertson [I9751 that policy makers and planners should ignore the traditional assumption that economic hardship may be a consequence of ficence disqualification. The present data are consistent with the major point made by Baker and Robertson, that economic hardship should not be the dominant concern of courts in imposing ficence disqualification, as this factor does not present as the major concern of those disqualified. Thus, it would seem that the importance attributed to driving as a means of transport is considerably exaggerated and that, for the most part, the individual’s need for a driving ficence should receive little consideration in .the sentencing process. In the fight of the present results, however, there appears to be a flaw in this argument. Regardless of whether or not the individual’s perceived need for a ficence to drive can be considered to have any objective reality for the purposes of legal and planning considerations, the present data indicate that the individual, being by now so well conditioned to the availability of the private motor vehicle, will perceive his need for a ficence as undiminished, and will tend to ignore any legal proscription that he stop driving. It is undeniable that a majority of those who are considered for disquali~cation will tend to pose a much greater than usual threat to other road users, but the present results cast doubts on the value of imposing the penalty of disqualification if it is going to be ignored by a significant proportion of its recipients. The present study found that over 36% of subjects admitted driving while disqualified, and this result is consistent with those reported by other authors [for example, Coppin and van Ofdenbeek, 1%5; and Wiffett, 19731.Thus it is apparent that the procedures for enforcing adherence to the terms of the sanction need revision so that the perceived importance of compliance is valued above those needs which are satisfied by driving. A recent examination of the determinants of the decision to drive while disqualified [Robinson and Kefso, 19761 indicated that the most effective means of achieving this end would be to substantially increase the probability of detection of those who do drive while disqualified. However, conformity with the legal provisions of disqualification may not be the sole criterion for judging the success of the sanction. fnsofar as information was available on the present sample of disqualified drivers, it appeared that none of those who continued to drive were apprehended by police. and this trend may indicate that the sanction had some beneficial effect, even if it was violated by a significant number of this sample. Such a suggestion is consistent with the findings of Hagen [ 19771that drink-driving offenders who were disqualified from driving subsequently showed a lower level of accident involvement than those placed in a rehabilitation program as an alternative to disqualification. There is no doubt that the diminishing availability of energy resources, and the fact that the remaining resources are not being used efficiently in powering individually owned and driven Table
3. Perceived
level of disruption ABSOLUTE FREQUENCY
LOW Medium High
caused
by disqualification RELATIVE FREQUENCY
131
24.6
63
11.9
338
63.5
(PCT.1
C. D. ROBINSON
310
vehicles, argue for a change of attitudes in favour of collective and more efficient means of transport. While there is objective evidence to suggest that individual transport is not necessary for most individuals, the present results suggest that it will be a major task to convince the individual driver of the validity of this argument. REFERENCES Baker S. P. and Robertson L. S., How drivers prevented from driving would reach work: implications for penalties. Accid. Anal. & Prev. I, 45-48, 1975. Coppin R. S. and van Oldenbeek G., Driving under suspension and revocation: LI study of suspended and revoked drivers classified as negligent operators. Sacramento, California State Department of Motor Vehicles, l%5. Hagen R., Eflectiveness of licence suspension or revocation for drivers convicted of multiple driving-under-the-influence oflences. Report No. 59. Sacramento, California State Department of Motor Vehicles. 1977. Klein D. and Walter J. A., Causation, Culpability, and LMerrence in Highway Crashes. Washington, DC. U.S. Govt. Printing Othce, 1970. Little J. W., Administration of justice in drunk driving cases. Am. Bar Ass. 58, 950-954, 1972. Robinson C. D. and Kelso G. I., Determinants of the decision to drive while disqualified. Paper presented at the 5th Annual Meeting of Australian Social Psychologists, Sydney, 1976. Willett T. C., Drivers after Sentence.
Heinemann,
London,
1973.
1I December 1978: in
revised form
Victoria 3122, Australia
I I June 1979)
Abstrart-A survey of disqualified drivers investigated the frequency of violation of the sanction and also reasons for violations. It was found that 34% of survey respondents admitted driving at some time during their disqualification, and that 40% of these offenders admitted driving more than 20 times while disqualified. The most common reasons for driving were “exceptional circumstances”, and business or employment reasons. Most of the respondents indicated that licence disqualification caused a significant disruption of their life styles.
Klein and Waller [1970] and Little [1972] have noted that both legislators and those responsible for implementing legal measures against driving offenders are generally reluctant to use the sanction of licence disqualification, and Baker and Robertson I19751have suggested that this reluctance is based on the “untested assumption” that unrestricted use of a motor vehicle is an economic necessity for most drivers. It can also be argued that withdrawal of the licence to drive will lead to social hardship. In an attempt to test the importance of motor vehicle use as a means of reaching the workplace, Baker and Robertson asked a sample of 450 people who customarily drove to work how they would reach their workplace if unable to drive due to having a leg in a cast. It was found that only 21% of the sampled drivers said that they could not make alternative travel arrangements to reach work, and those who felt that they could find alternative transport tended to believe that little additional time or cost would be involved. This evidence suggests that the need to drive in order to reach work should not be a major reason for driving while disqualified. The present study sought to find offenders’ reasons for driving while disqualified, and the relation between these reasons and their admitted frequency of driving while disqualified; in the present context the term of disquali~cation will be taken to include both suspension and revocation of the licence. The sample of disqualified drivers on which this study was based was drawn from the Australian state of Victoria which, in December 1975, had a population of approximately 3.7 million, a register of approximately 1.8 million motor vehicles, and 1.9million licensed drivers. As part of a large scale study of the effectiveness of Iicence disqualification as a sanction, a mail survey was conducted of all male drivers disqualified in Victoria during the three months from October 1st to December 31st, 1975; females and those disqualified for less than 48 hours were excluded from the sample because of the small numbers involved, and out-of-state drivers were also excluded. Respondents were asked to indicate whether or not they had driven while disqualified and to rate the disruption caused by their disqualification, and those who admitted driving while disqualified were further asked how many times they drove and their reasons for driving. A total of 1552 subjects responded, representing a response rate of 37.2%, and the median length of disqualification for the respondents was approximately three months. Comparisons of the respondents with those who did not respond revealed no systematic differences in terms of length of disqu~i~~tion, or type of offence committed. It was found that 34.4% of respondents admitted driving at some time during their period of disqualification. Table 1 shows the distribution of these subjects in terms of the number of times they admitted violating the sanction. It is noteworthy that approximately 40% of these subjects admitted driving more than 20 times while disqualified, and that a similar percentage claimed they drove on fewer than 5 occasions. tThe research reported here was supported by the Australian Government Department of Transport. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of the Department of Transport. Requests for reprints should be sent to Christopher D. Robinson, Department of Psychology, Swinburne College of Technology, P.O. Box 218, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122, Australia. 307
C. D. ROBINSON
308 Table
I. Admitted
frequency
of driving
whiledisqualified
ABSOLUTE
RELATIVE
FREQUENCY OXICe
FREQUENCY
86
15.8
125
22.9
5 to 10 times
75
13.7
11 to 20 times
40
1.3
Over
97
17.8
123
22.5
546
100.0
2 to 4 times
20 times
AS often
as usual
TOTAL
Table
2. Reasons
for driving
while disqualified
ABSOLUTE FREQUENCY
Business Family
or employment
or social
No public
transport
Exceptional Whenever
circumstances
transport
needed
only
(PCT.)
RELATIVE FREQUENCY
149
27.6
96
17.9
56
10.6
217
40.4
154
28.8
(PCT.)
Subjects were asked to indicate the purpose or purposes for which they drove while disqualified, and Table 2 shows the frequency with which various reasons were mentioned; it should be noted that some subjects indicated that they drove for a number of reasons, and consequently the percentages shown in Table 2 do not accumulate to 100%. The most frequent response was that subjects drove only in what they considered to be exceptional circumstances, and the next largest group indicated that they drove to fulfill all their regular transport needs. Business or employment reasons were indicated by only 27.6% of those who drove, a finding which is similar to that reported by Baker and Robertson [ 19751. The group consisting of those who drove whenever they needed transport is noticeably larger than the group shown in Table 1 consisting of subjects whose admitted frequency of driving was “as often as usual”, and further analyses indicated that some of the subjects who continued to drive their own vehicles to satisfy all their transport needs admitted relatively low frequencies of driving. Thus 27% of these subjects said they drove ten times or less, and only 52% said that they drove as often as they would have when they were licensed. It seems possible, then, that some subjects reconsidered their transport needs after they were disqualified, and only drove when they felt it was really necessary. Analyses of the frequencies of driving admitted by those who drove “only in exceptional circumstances” suggests that, for some of these subjects, a considerable number of exceptional circumstances presented themselves. It was found that 3% of these subjects admitted driving on five or more occasions, and 20% drove more than ten times. These rates of violation of the sanction can be considered as relatively high, given that the median length of disqualification was three months. Further, of the 217 subjects who indicated that they drove “only in exceptional circumstances”, 17.5% also said that they drove for business reasons, 14.4% also admitted driving for social reasons, and 8.4% also said that they drove whenever they needed transport. These subsidiary findings suggest that “exceptional circumstances” were not usually seen as implying emergency situations (in the strictest sense of that term) or isolated instances, but rather as circumstances where driving was considered to be the most suitable course of action, despite the imposed disqualification. Thus employment-related demands were more likely to be associated with “exceptional circumstances” than were social needs. Supplementary analyses indicated that the reasons given for driving were independent of the offender’s marital status or occupation, or whether he was a city or country dweller: each of the
Reasons
for driving
while disqualified
309
reasons was most commonly provided by offenders who were single, employed as skilled or unskilled workers, and who lived in a city environment. Subject’s age, however, showed some relation to the type of reason indicated, with those aged between 20 and 24 years most frequently indicating all reasons except those of business and employment; these fatter reasons were most frequently mentioned by subjects aged between 30 and 39 years or over 60 years. Subjects were also asked to rate the amount of disruption resulting from their disqualification. An eight point scale was provided for these ratings, but for the analyses this scale- was collapsed to provide three levels of perceived disruption: low, medium and high. Table 3 shows the numbers of subjects who indicated each of these levels of disruption. It is readily apparent that most subjects saw the sanction as producing a significant disruption of their fife styles. This finding is not altogether surprising, but it is interesting in the fight of comments made by Baker and Robertson [I9751 that policy makers and planners should ignore the traditional assumption that economic hardship may be a consequence of ficence disqualification. The present data are consistent with the major point made by Baker and Robertson, that economic hardship should not be the dominant concern of courts in imposing ficence disqualification, as this factor does not present as the major concern of those disqualified. Thus, it would seem that the importance attributed to driving as a means of transport is considerably exaggerated and that, for the most part, the individual’s need for a driving ficence should receive little consideration in .the sentencing process. In the fight of the present results, however, there appears to be a flaw in this argument. Regardless of whether or not the individual’s perceived need for a ficence to drive can be considered to have any objective reality for the purposes of legal and planning considerations, the present data indicate that the individual, being by now so well conditioned to the availability of the private motor vehicle, will perceive his need for a ficence as undiminished, and will tend to ignore any legal proscription that he stop driving. It is undeniable that a majority of those who are considered for disquali~cation will tend to pose a much greater than usual threat to other road users, but the present results cast doubts on the value of imposing the penalty of disqualification if it is going to be ignored by a significant proportion of its recipients. The present study found that over 36% of subjects admitted driving while disqualified, and this result is consistent with those reported by other authors [for example, Coppin and van Ofdenbeek, 1%5; and Wiffett, 19731.Thus it is apparent that the procedures for enforcing adherence to the terms of the sanction need revision so that the perceived importance of compliance is valued above those needs which are satisfied by driving. A recent examination of the determinants of the decision to drive while disqualified [Robinson and Kefso, 19761 indicated that the most effective means of achieving this end would be to substantially increase the probability of detection of those who do drive while disqualified. However, conformity with the legal provisions of disqualification may not be the sole criterion for judging the success of the sanction. fnsofar as information was available on the present sample of disqualified drivers, it appeared that none of those who continued to drive were apprehended by police. and this trend may indicate that the sanction had some beneficial effect, even if it was violated by a significant number of this sample. Such a suggestion is consistent with the findings of Hagen [ 19771that drink-driving offenders who were disqualified from driving subsequently showed a lower level of accident involvement than those placed in a rehabilitation program as an alternative to disqualification. There is no doubt that the diminishing availability of energy resources, and the fact that the remaining resources are not being used efficiently in powering individually owned and driven Table
3. Perceived
level of disruption ABSOLUTE FREQUENCY
LOW Medium High
caused
by disqualification RELATIVE FREQUENCY
131
24.6
63
11.9
338
63.5
(PCT.1
C. D. ROBINSON
310
vehicles, argue for a change of attitudes in favour of collective and more efficient means of transport. While there is objective evidence to suggest that individual transport is not necessary for most individuals, the present results suggest that it will be a major task to convince the individual driver of the validity of this argument. REFERENCES Baker S. P. and Robertson L. S., How drivers prevented from driving would reach work: implications for penalties. Accid. Anal. & Prev. I, 45-48, 1975. Coppin R. S. and van Oldenbeek G., Driving under suspension and revocation: LI study of suspended and revoked drivers classified as negligent operators. Sacramento, California State Department of Motor Vehicles, l%5. Hagen R., Eflectiveness of licence suspension or revocation for drivers convicted of multiple driving-under-the-influence oflences. Report No. 59. Sacramento, California State Department of Motor Vehicles. 1977. Klein D. and Walter J. A., Causation, Culpability, and LMerrence in Highway Crashes. Washington, DC. U.S. Govt. Printing Othce, 1970. Little J. W., Administration of justice in drunk driving cases. Am. Bar Ass. 58, 950-954, 1972. Robinson C. D. and Kelso G. I., Determinants of the decision to drive while disqualified. Paper presented at the 5th Annual Meeting of Australian Social Psychologists, Sydney, 1976. Willett T. C., Drivers after Sentence.
Heinemann,
London,
1973.