Illegal street racing has received increased attention from road safety professionals and the media in recent years, as jurisdictions in Australia,Canada and the United States have implemented laws to address the problemthat primarily involves young male drivers. While there is some evidence to suggest that the prevalence of illegal street racing is increasing, obtaining accurate estimates of the crash risk of this behavior is difficult due to limitations in official data sources. While crash risk can be explored by examining the proportion of incidents of street racing that result in crashes, or the proportion of all crashes that involve street racing, this paper reports on the findings of a study that explored the riskiness of involved drivers. The driving histories of 183 male drivers with an illegal street racing conviction in Queensland, Australia were compared to a random sample of 183 Queensland drivers with the same age distribution. It was found that the offender group had significantly more prior traffic infringements, license sanctions and crashes relative to the comparison group. Drivers in the offender group were more likely than the comparison groupto have prior infringements related to street racing, such as speeding, hooning-related offenses and offenses related to vehicle defects or illegalmodifications. There was insufficient power to fully explore between group differences in the type and nature of prior crashes. It was concluded that street racing offenders can be considered generally risky drivers warranting attention, and that this risk cannot be explained by their youth alone.
Abstract