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Youth and traffic accident risk: Possible causes and potential solutions
Accrd. Anal. & Prev. Vol Pruned in Great Britain.
18. No. 4. pp. 253-254.
1986
OcQl-4575166 $3.00 + .@I 0 1986 Pergamon Journals Ltd.
YOUTH AND TRAFFIC ACCIDENT RISK: POSSIBLE CAUSES AND POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS It has been over 10 years since Accident Analysis and Prevention has devoted a special issue to the problem of the overrepresentation of youth in motor vehicle accidents. Unfortunately, not enough has changed in the interim to alter the fact that traffic accidents are the single most common cause of death among young drivers aged 16 to 25, particularly in Canada and the United States where young people have greater access to motor vehicles. While I was watching a rerun of the movie American Gruffiiti a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that the role of the automobile in the youth culture really has not changed a great deal between the time period depicted in this film (early 1960s) and the present. In order to secure status within the youth culture it was, and still is, necessary to have “wheels.” Moreover, it seems to be necessary, particularly among young men, to express their machismo, their emotions and their frustrations by the manner in which they operate these status symbols on the roads. This was illustrated in the climactic scene of American Graffiti when one of the heroes of the movie drag raced a challenger on a section of the highway. This fictional story had a happy ending since, even though there was an accident, no one was hurt. A recent newspaper article brought home to me the fact that the treatment of vehicles as symbols of status rather than just mere instruments of transportation has not changed over the past 25 years. Moreover, it clearly illustrated that such attitudes do not result in minor mishaps on the road but rather can engender tragedy. The article which attracted my attention was a report on a coroner’s inquest investigating the events that led to the death of a 25year-old pedestrian in a motor vehicle accident which occurred this past summer in the Province of Quebec. Apparently, two men, aged 23 and 2.5, were at a party and decided to have a car race. At about 2 AM, the two men went to a local strip of highway, taking with them a number of spectators from the party. One of these spectators served as the “flagman” and started the race. After having travelled a certain distance, the two drivers turned their cars around in a parking lot and raced back toward the starting line which also served as the finish line. For some reason, the man who had started the race was still standing on the road. The lead driver managed to avoid hitting the man but the second driver was not as fortunate, nor was the pedestrian who was killed instantly. But for the ensuing death, this event could have passed for a scene from a Canadian version of American Graffiti. As it turned out, one young man’s life was ended and another man’s life was ruined. The latter, a student at one of Canada’s best universities, now finds himself being held criminally responsible for the pedestrian’s death. As I was reading the newspaper article, I found myself asking questions about the incident. Why were the two men racing? Did they not perceive the risk inherent in such behaviour or did they just not care? Why did the lead driver manage to avoid the victim while the second driver did not? Why was the victim standing on the road anyway? Was he demonstrating bravado? Was his judgment impaired by alcohol? Finally, why did the spectators not intervene to stop the race? Did they fail to recognize the danger or did they succumb to peer pressure and hence say nothing for fear of censure? Perhaps the answers to some of these questions can be found in the coroner’s report or perhaps no one will ever really know the answers. The point of describing this particular tragedy, which repeats itself all too often, is that it raised in my mind many of the questions that we as traffic safety researchers and program managers grapple with each day. Moreover, many of these questions are addressed in one form or another in the subsequent articles of this issue. This issue contains eight articles: literature reviews, reports on original experimental research and evaluations of programs intended to reduce the frequency of young driver accidents. In the opening 253
254
B. A. JONAII
article, I review the literature on the elevated risk of traffic accidents among young drivers and attempt to demonstrate that what may underlie the enhanced risk is the greater propensity among youth for taking risks while driving, particularly among males. In a second review paper, Mayhew et al. focus on the main and interactive effects of age and alcohol consumption on the likelihood of accident involvement among young drivers. An important aspect of risk-taking behaviour is whether or not young drivers perceive the driving task and driving environment differently. The papers by Finn and Bragg, Matthews and Moran, and Egberink et al. are empirical investigations which compare younger and older drivers on different aspects of risk perception, namely the perception of risk of an accident in various driving situations, the perception of one’s driving skill under various driving conditions and the knowledge about and behaviour exhibited in those situations where there is potential for an accident between a driver and a child pedestrian or bicyclist. The remaining three papers address two approaches to educating young drivers about the risk of accident involvement. The first of these, a contribution by Lund et al. presents a reanalysis of the data from the Dekalb Safe Performance Driver Education Curriculum evaluation to determine the veracity of the claim that the program induced a short term (six month) reduction in accidents and traffic violations. Mann et al. review the available literature concerning the effectiveness of education programs intended to reduce the incidence of drinking and driving among youth, while McKnight and McPherson present the results of an evaluation of a specific school program designed to encourage young people to prevent their friends from driving after drinking. As the reader will no doubt note, these articles do not represent an integrated body of literature. Perhaps with the exception of the three studies on risk perception, the only commonalty among them is the fact that they all address young drivers. I make no apologies for this lack of integration. The group of articles that you will discover in this issue represents a sample of our current state of knowledge in the field of young driver research and program development in 1985, a year declared by the United Nations to be the International Year of Youth. It is my fervent hope that this issue will stimulate more researchers, academic and applied alike, to join in the pursuit of a better understanding of the behaviour and motivations of our young people so that by the time another year is designated to proclaim the importance of our youth, we will only be confronted with fictional accounts of the indiscretions of youth such as in American Graffiti and not with the tragic accounts such as those that appear in newspapers each day.
BRIAN A.JONAH Guest Editor
18. No. 4. pp. 253-254.
1986
OcQl-4575166 $3.00 + .@I 0 1986 Pergamon Journals Ltd.
YOUTH AND TRAFFIC ACCIDENT RISK: POSSIBLE CAUSES AND POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS It has been over 10 years since Accident Analysis and Prevention has devoted a special issue to the problem of the overrepresentation of youth in motor vehicle accidents. Unfortunately, not enough has changed in the interim to alter the fact that traffic accidents are the single most common cause of death among young drivers aged 16 to 25, particularly in Canada and the United States where young people have greater access to motor vehicles. While I was watching a rerun of the movie American Gruffiiti a couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that the role of the automobile in the youth culture really has not changed a great deal between the time period depicted in this film (early 1960s) and the present. In order to secure status within the youth culture it was, and still is, necessary to have “wheels.” Moreover, it seems to be necessary, particularly among young men, to express their machismo, their emotions and their frustrations by the manner in which they operate these status symbols on the roads. This was illustrated in the climactic scene of American Graffiti when one of the heroes of the movie drag raced a challenger on a section of the highway. This fictional story had a happy ending since, even though there was an accident, no one was hurt. A recent newspaper article brought home to me the fact that the treatment of vehicles as symbols of status rather than just mere instruments of transportation has not changed over the past 25 years. Moreover, it clearly illustrated that such attitudes do not result in minor mishaps on the road but rather can engender tragedy. The article which attracted my attention was a report on a coroner’s inquest investigating the events that led to the death of a 25year-old pedestrian in a motor vehicle accident which occurred this past summer in the Province of Quebec. Apparently, two men, aged 23 and 2.5, were at a party and decided to have a car race. At about 2 AM, the two men went to a local strip of highway, taking with them a number of spectators from the party. One of these spectators served as the “flagman” and started the race. After having travelled a certain distance, the two drivers turned their cars around in a parking lot and raced back toward the starting line which also served as the finish line. For some reason, the man who had started the race was still standing on the road. The lead driver managed to avoid hitting the man but the second driver was not as fortunate, nor was the pedestrian who was killed instantly. But for the ensuing death, this event could have passed for a scene from a Canadian version of American Graffiti. As it turned out, one young man’s life was ended and another man’s life was ruined. The latter, a student at one of Canada’s best universities, now finds himself being held criminally responsible for the pedestrian’s death. As I was reading the newspaper article, I found myself asking questions about the incident. Why were the two men racing? Did they not perceive the risk inherent in such behaviour or did they just not care? Why did the lead driver manage to avoid the victim while the second driver did not? Why was the victim standing on the road anyway? Was he demonstrating bravado? Was his judgment impaired by alcohol? Finally, why did the spectators not intervene to stop the race? Did they fail to recognize the danger or did they succumb to peer pressure and hence say nothing for fear of censure? Perhaps the answers to some of these questions can be found in the coroner’s report or perhaps no one will ever really know the answers. The point of describing this particular tragedy, which repeats itself all too often, is that it raised in my mind many of the questions that we as traffic safety researchers and program managers grapple with each day. Moreover, many of these questions are addressed in one form or another in the subsequent articles of this issue. This issue contains eight articles: literature reviews, reports on original experimental research and evaluations of programs intended to reduce the frequency of young driver accidents. In the opening 253
254
B. A. JONAII
article, I review the literature on the elevated risk of traffic accidents among young drivers and attempt to demonstrate that what may underlie the enhanced risk is the greater propensity among youth for taking risks while driving, particularly among males. In a second review paper, Mayhew et al. focus on the main and interactive effects of age and alcohol consumption on the likelihood of accident involvement among young drivers. An important aspect of risk-taking behaviour is whether or not young drivers perceive the driving task and driving environment differently. The papers by Finn and Bragg, Matthews and Moran, and Egberink et al. are empirical investigations which compare younger and older drivers on different aspects of risk perception, namely the perception of risk of an accident in various driving situations, the perception of one’s driving skill under various driving conditions and the knowledge about and behaviour exhibited in those situations where there is potential for an accident between a driver and a child pedestrian or bicyclist. The remaining three papers address two approaches to educating young drivers about the risk of accident involvement. The first of these, a contribution by Lund et al. presents a reanalysis of the data from the Dekalb Safe Performance Driver Education Curriculum evaluation to determine the veracity of the claim that the program induced a short term (six month) reduction in accidents and traffic violations. Mann et al. review the available literature concerning the effectiveness of education programs intended to reduce the incidence of drinking and driving among youth, while McKnight and McPherson present the results of an evaluation of a specific school program designed to encourage young people to prevent their friends from driving after drinking. As the reader will no doubt note, these articles do not represent an integrated body of literature. Perhaps with the exception of the three studies on risk perception, the only commonalty among them is the fact that they all address young drivers. I make no apologies for this lack of integration. The group of articles that you will discover in this issue represents a sample of our current state of knowledge in the field of young driver research and program development in 1985, a year declared by the United Nations to be the International Year of Youth. It is my fervent hope that this issue will stimulate more researchers, academic and applied alike, to join in the pursuit of a better understanding of the behaviour and motivations of our young people so that by the time another year is designated to proclaim the importance of our youth, we will only be confronted with fictional accounts of the indiscretions of youth such as in American Graffiti and not with the tragic accounts such as those that appear in newspapers each day.
BRIAN A.JONAH Guest Editor