Citation

Kuzma JW, Dysinger PW, Strutz P, Abbey D. Accid. Anal. Prev. 1973; 5(1): 55-65.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1973, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

This report compares the biographical, personality and religious factors thought to be related to nonfatal traffic violations and accidents of a non-drinking group (Seventh-Day Adventists--SDA) and its matched neighbor group. This study was performed to determine the appropriateness of comparing traffic accident rates of the non-drinking SDA population with that of a matched population, which necessitated the determination of how different these groups were with respect to factors other than their consumption of alcohol.102 randomly-selected SDAs were compared with their third-door neighbors using a survey instrument composed of selected items from four instruments. In addition to the 23 personality and attitude factors measured by this instrument, a number of demographic and driving habit variables were included in a separate questionnaire.For the above-mentioned psychological factors, it was shown that the two groups differed significantly in only six. The SDAs had a significantly lower mean score on alcoholic tendency, ambition, and masculinity, but a higher score on benevolence, friendliness, and objectivity. No significant differences were observed on accident attitude, violation attitude, general activity, and personal relations, items on which Schuster and Guilford found significant correlations with violations and accidents in their study group. With respect to the biographical variables, significant differences were observed between the two groups in such items as church attendance, Bible study, and prayer, and the drinking of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and military service experience. No differences were observed between the groups in items such as night driving, rush-hour driving, freeway driving, average mileage, and motor vehicle accidents. In a study of the relationship of accident rates to various factors, military service experience, Bible reading, and drinking of alcohol turned out to be the most important.