THE ROLE OF SOCIAL DEVIANCE AND VIOLATIONS IN PREDICTING ROAD TRAFFICACCIDENTS IN A SAMPLE OF YOUNG OFFENDERS

Lawton, Parker, Stradling & Manstead (1997) examined the relationship between mild social deviance (West, Elander & French, 1993 a), driving violations and road traffic accident involvement in a sample of 830 d rivers. The relationship between mild social deviance and accident inv olvement was shown to be partly mediated by propensity to commit drivi ng violations and by factors associated with driver age. The present r esearch replicates and extends this study with a sample of 100 young, male offenders. Self-reports of violations and errors (using the Manch ester Driver Behaviour Questionnaire), an extended measure of social d eviance, speed preference and accident involvement were collected, tog ether with information about age, annual mileage driven and the type o f offence for which the driver was under remand. Factor analysis of th e social deviance items yielded two factors: extreme and mild social d eviance. Logistic regression was used to investigate the relationship between predictor variables and accident involvement. Both propensity to commit driving violations and extreme social deviance predicted acc ident involvement in this sample. However, the relationship between ex treme social deviance and accident involvement was partly mediated by a tendency to commit driving violations. The implications of the findi ngs for intervention strategies aimed at the prevention of accidents a re considered.