Drivers involved in three or more accidents in 1967 and a random selection of drivers driving records were studied for the years 1967-1971. It became clear that the greater number of accidents that a driver has in one year increases the probability that he will have accidents in later years. However there are no factors that predict with accuracy who will be the high accident drivers of the future from the multiple accident drivers of today. In studying the accidents it was found the more accidents a driver had the less serious they tended to be, most high accident drivers were residents of urbanised areas, these drivers were younger and more were male in contrast to the control group. As a group Indiana study concludes that the accident record of a driver during a given year is not sufficient to predict his driving record in future years.
Abstract