Citation

Case HW, Reiter I, Feblowicz EA, Stewart RG. Highw. Res. Board bull. 1956; 120: 31-36.

Copyright

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

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The individual who becomes a habitual traffic violator has been the cause of much concern to those who are associated with automotive transportation in the united states. Constantly increasing road congestion makes urgent the isolation, analysis, and correction of such individuals. To throw some light on this subject a study of habitual violators was undertaken. Three hundred habitual violators were interviewed by trained interviewers to determine the factors surrounding their violation and obtain information concerning their psychological characteristics. A more- detailed analysis was made of one hundred cases. The entire group of 300 had 1,774 violations during a 12-month period. Of these, 76 percent were moving violations. The most-common class of moving violations was failure to heed traffic- control devices and the next-most-frequent class was speeding violations. Workers, occupationally classifiable as skilled, were 55 percent of the group. Native-born californians were 24 percent. Males represented 92 percent of the group. The entire group had a median age of 29 and a mode of 23. The majority of cars (59 percent) were 1943 or more-recent models. When distributions of estimated intelligence and personality were made for the group, a close approximation to a normal distribution was evident. A more-detailed clinical analysis of the data of 100 cases revealed that there was a tendency to view both law and police with a positive rather than negative view. Also, a tendency appeared to exist to not commit the type of violation which they classified as being the most serious. For the 300 cases, the factor which appears to differentiate them from other populations is a habit of committing traffic violations for which they are apprehended.