When Do Drivers Have Their First Accident and Does It Have an Impact on Subsequent Driving?

The report describes further analyses of the accident data collected in the Cohort II study (Wells et al., 2008). It employs different procedures to those used in the main study and approaches the data from a different point of view.

It does so by posing two questions. The first is to ask when new drivers have their first accidents and what factors influence this. The second is to ask what effect accidents have on the attitudes and self-reported behaviours of the drivers who are involved.

The question ‘How long does it take before a new driver has an accident?’ has been investigated by using a technique known as ‘survival analysis’, where ‘survival’ is the time (in months or miles) that elapses before the first accident in which the driver is involved. The results showed that:

• The age of the driver is important, with older drivers ‘surviving’ accident-free longer than younger ones.
• A self-reported driving style that is ‘attentive, careful, responsible and safe’ is also associated with a longer ‘survival’ time.
• The experience of driving in busy town centres and of driving in the rain for at least two hours when learning were also associated with longer survival times before having the first accident.
• Driver behaviours during the first six months of driving were also influential on survival time, with ‘better’ behaviours being associated with longer survival times.

The investigation of the effects of accidents on subsequent driving indicated that drivers who are accident-involved do modify some of their driving behaviours and attitudes.

• Accident-involved female drivers were aware that they were less decisive, less confident, made more errors and slips and were less hazard-involved in the period following an accident than they had been in previously.
• Male drivers who were accident-involved reported being less confident after the accident than they had been before it.
• While females are more affected by accidents than are males, overall the effects as measured by self-reported measures of attitudes and behaviours are not particularly large.