Citation

Meirambayeva A, Vingilis ER, Zou G, Elzohairy Y, McLeod AI, Xiao J. Traffic Injury Prev. 2014; 15(8): 786-793.

Affiliation

a Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry , The University of Western Ontario , London , Ontario , Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/15389588.2014.890721

PMID

24571252

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to conduct a process and outcome evaluation of the deterrent impact of Ontario's street racing and stunt driving legislation, introduced in September 2007, on extreme speeding convictions. It was hypothesized that because males are much more likely to engage in speeding, street racing and stunt driving, the new law would have more impact in reducing extreme speeding in males when compared to females. METHODS: Descriptive statistics and time series plots were used for the suspensions data. Interrupted time series analysis with ARIMA modelling was applied to the monthly extreme speeding convictions in Ontario for the period of January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2011 to assess the impact of the new legislation, separately for male drivers (intervention group) and female drivers (comparison group). RESULTS: The results indicated that per licenced driver, 1.21% of 16-24 year old male drivers and 0.37% of 25-64 year old male drivers had their licences suspended between September 2007 and December 2011. This is in contrast to females where 0.21% of 16-24 year old female drivers and 0.07% of 25-64 year old female drivers had their licences suspended during the same time period. A significant intervention effect was found in the male driver group, while no corresponding effect was observed in the female driver group. The findings of this study are consistent with previous research on demographics of street racers and stunt drivers. CONCLUSIONS: These findings are congruent with deterrence theory that certain, swift and severe sanctions can deter risky driving behaviour and support the hypothesis that legal sanctions can have an impact on the extreme speeding convictions of the intervention group.

Language: en