The purpose of this study was to identify the behaviours of young drivers which are responsible for their over-representation in traffic accidents. The major groups of contributing factors were: skill deficits; risk-taking; and exposure-related factors. The contribution of alcohol was not examined. In the second stage of the study, casualty accidents reported to police were broken down by traffic movements and driver age, so as to determine whether the over-representation of young drivers is greater in some accident types. Young drivers were found to be particularly over-represented in single vehicle accidents and situations involving failure to cope with conflicts caused by unexpected actions of other road users. Three accident types were selected for investigation in the third stage. Detailed information on the events leading up to the accidents in the sample was obtained from files compiled by Victoria Police. Voluntary risk acceptance by young drivers was found to be an important contributor to their over-representation in single vehicle accidents and difficulty in detecting or predicting conflicts was found to be the major cause of young driver over-representation in accidents involving unexpected conflicts with other road users. (A) The ISBN of the microfiche version is 0-86910-643-0.
Abstract