Citation

Evans L, Wasielewski P. Accid. Anal. Prev. 1982; 14(1): 57-64.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1982, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0001-4575(82)90007-0

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

For more than forty years researchers have tried to relate traffic accident involvement to how an individual normally drives. Such efforts have not hitherto discovered clear effects. This study establishes statistically significant relations between prior involvement in accidents and an observed characteristic of every day driving. The observed driving characteristic is following headway in high flow freeway traffic, defined as the time interval between a vehicle and the preceding vehicle in the same lane. This headway is interpreted as a measure of driver risk. It is found that accident-involved drivers are more likely to follow with short headways (less than 1 s) than accident-free drivers. A similar effect is found in comparing drivers with and without traffic violations.Records of accident involvement and traffic violations were obtained (with the cooperation of the Michigan Department of State) for 2576 unidentified drivers observed travelling on a local freeway in high flow afternoon rush hour traffic. The observational data consisted of a measure of the headway and a photograph of each vehicle from which the license plate number was read. In most cases the license plate number provided the driver license number of the registered owner. Cases were excluded if the sex and age of the driver observed in the photograph did not match the owner information. The traffic violation and accident records available from the driver license file were used to examine following headway as a function of driver record. Based on their observed closer following in freeway traffic it is concluded that accident-involved drivers and drivers cited for violations exhibit higher levels of risk in everyday driving than accident-free and citation-free drivers.