Citation

Lauer AR, Siebrecht EB. Highw. Res. Board bull. 1956; 120: 37-45.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1956, National Research Council (U.S.A.), Highway Research Board)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

It is well known that the accident-reporting index varies considerably from area to area even within a given jurisdiction and from time to time. There is evidence that the reporting is done best in the more-highly populated areas and poorest in the sparsely populated areas. Before the passage of a financial responsibility law in Iowa the reporting index was shown by Lauer to vary considerably from year to year. Publicity programs also have a great deal to do with the accident reporting index in a given locality. The national safety council has shown that there is a wide variation between states. The frequently quoted ratio of around 125 accidents per fatality is only an average found throughout the United States. It is conceivable that other factors may operate, notably the discharge of certain military groups, the incidence of the number of persons taken into the draft, seasonal variation, and travel due to vacations, sports contests, etc. The present study is a comparison of the violation and accident records in iowa for two consecutive periods, 1948-50 and 1950-52. Two samplings of 7,692 drivers and 7,334 drivers were systematically drawn from the Iowa license files during these two periods. Comparisons are made on the basis of age and sex. It was originally hypothesized that there might be a difference between these two periods from the effects of driver education, a larger patrol and other factors which might influence the incidence of violations or accidents during these periods. Tabular data will be given which show that differences between two 3-year periods are relatively minor and that high agreement is found in the general nature of the age curves for the two samples. A relative consistency in the nature of violations from year to year is indicated.