FAMILY DISORGANIZATION AND TEENAGE AUTO ACCIDENTS

Teenagers account for a disproportionate number of traffic accidents and violations. Assuming that family disequilibrium affects adolescant driving, the authors have investigated the life styles and family relationships of 496 adolescents, age 16 to 19, and their parents in relation to their driving records. Family dysfunction and social stress seem to be important in the causation of accidents in males, but not females. The only important predictor for females seems to be exposure to risk or actual mileage driven. These preliminary studies give credence to the hypothesis that for males, auto accidents, like social deviancy, are symptomatic of family disorder. That females do not chose this avenue of expression of conflict is probably due to sex-role limitations on macho behavior in girls. The authors present path regression analysis as a useful method for analyzing complex epidemiologic data. /Author/

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/1800052
• Corporate Authors:

  National Safety Council

  425 North Michigan Avenue
  Chicago, IL  United States  60611
• Authors:
  • SOBEL, R
  • Underhall, R
• Publication Date: 1976-3

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 8-18
• Serial:
  • Journal of Safety Research
  • Volume: 8
  • Issue Number: 1
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0022-4375
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00224375

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Adolescents; Crash causes; Driver records; Epidemiology; Families; Gender; Social values; Traffic crashes
• Uncontrolled Terms: Motor vehicle accidents
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00139985
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Safety Council Safety Research Info Serv
• Contract Numbers: MH 23023
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 6 1976 12:00AM