The core objective of this study was to collect offence history data for active road users involved in OTS investigated collisions in Nottinghamshire. In addition, work has been done to combine data from the Deprivation project (based on the conversion of home postcodes into Index of Multiple Deprivation scores). This additional data matching was initiated as part of the OTS Causation Study. The offence history data is based on police searches for each active road user to identify PNC (Police National Computer) and DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) records. These data are then linked to the OTS accident causation and deprivation data to create a unique anonymized dataset which allows links between accident causation and offending to be explored, taking account of road user characteristics and socio-demographics. Data were linked for offences relating to the both motoring and non-motoring offences, and relating to events recorded at any time, either before, during or after the collisions investigated. The value of this data is in contributing to a better understanding of some of the complex human aspects of risk taking behaviour and road accident involvement. It is important to understand not only the mistakes that people make, but whether there are specific groups of people who are more likely to make certain types of mistake. Understanding behavioural patterns and related demographics that are common among collision involved road users could aid the future development of road safety policy and the targeting of awareness campaigns. This report presents Phase 2 & 3 OTS data from the Vehicle Safety Research Centre (collected 2003-2010). Identity details necessary to collect offence and deprivation data were destroyed for all Phase 1 cases (2000-2003) prior to the commencement of these projects (in line with data protection obligations). Data are presented mainly in descriptive form due to the many caveats that must be considered within this complex dataset. However where appropriate, Pearson's Chi Square significance results are included. This Offence Histories research was undertaken on behalf of the Department for Transport, which also sponsored the core OTS data collection project. (Author/publisher)
Abstract