PERSONALITY FACTORS IN CRASHES: AGE AND ALCOHOL

During the course of a seven year inter-disciplinary, multi- institutional investigation we have intensively studied 310 drivers involved in both fatal and non-fatal crashes. The data collected from this study was subjected to univariate, multivariate and factoral analyses. The principal findings of this report were: The drivers in the study were significantly deviant from population norms with regard to a number of personality characteristics, as measured by the Katz Adjustment Scale R- Form. The drivers, as a group, could be described as aggressive, impulsive and displaying moderately anti-social characteristics. Surprisingly, these deviant psychological characteristics did not correlate with socio- demographic variables, such as age, positive blood alcohol levels, culpability for the crash, number of vehicles involved in the crash, or death of the driver. Our interpretation of these findings are: The studied drivers are not representative of the general, male driver populations. The drivers displayed personality characteristics which are habitual, life-long, and essentially preclude their (the drivers) ability to collaborate in safety action programs, educational efforts for safer driving, or consistent use of active restraining devices. /HSRI/

• Corporate Authors:

  American Association for Automotive Medicine

  801 Green Bay Road
  Lake Bluff, IL  United States  60044
• Authors:
  • Schmidt Jr, C W
  • Shaffer, J W
  • Zlotowitz, H I
  • Fisher, R S
• Conference:
  • 20th Annual Conference of the American Association for Automotive Medicine
  • Date: 1976-11-1 to 1976-11-3
• Publication Date: 1976

Media Info

• Features: Appendices;
• Pagination: p. 307-314
• Serial:
  • Volume: 20

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Age; Alcohols; Driver training; Manual safety belts; Personality; Psychological aspects
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00144186
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Highway Safety Research Institute
• Contract Numbers: DOT-HS-024-1-115
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Apr 13 1977 12:00AM