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The role of social deviance and violations in predicting road traffic accidents in a sample of young offenders
Author(s) -
Meadows Michelle L.,
Stradling Stephen G.,
Lawson Susanna
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1998.tb02694.x
Subject(s) - psychology , deviance (statistics) , sample (material) , road traffic , human factors and ergonomics , poison control , injury prevention , social psychology , developmental psychology , medical emergency , statistics , transport engineering , engineering , medicine , mathematics , chemistry , chromatography
Lawton, Parker, Stradling & Manstead (1997) examined the relationship between mild social deviance (West, Elander & French, 1993 a ), driving violations and road traffic accident involvement in a sample of 830 drivers. The relationship between mild social deviance and accident involvement was shown to be partly mediated by propensity to commit driving violations and by factors associated with driver age. The present research replicates and extends this study with a sample of 100 young, male offenders. Self‐reports of violations and errors (using the Manchester Driver Behaviour Questionnaire), an extended measure of social deviance, speed preference and accident involvement were collected, together with information about age, annual mileage driven and the type of offence for which the driver was under remand. Factor analysis of the social deviance items yielded two factors: extreme and mild social deviance. Logistic regression was used to investigate the relationship between predictor variables and accident involvement. Both propensity to commit driving violations and extreme social deviance predicted accident involvement in this sample. However, the relationship between extreme social deviance and accident involvement was partly mediated by a tendency to commit driving violations. The implications of the findings for intervention strategies aimed at the prevention of accidents are considered.