Citation

Latman N. Accid. Anal. Prev. 1977; 9(2): 109-112.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1977, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A hypothesis describing the effect of possible cyclic fluctuations of human sensitivity (28 days), intelligence (33 days), and physical (23 days) characteristics on motor vehicle accidents was examined. For the general driving public, a higher rate of accidents (37%) was found to occur on days termed "critical" (i.e. day on which the trait characteristic crossed the mean value) than would have been expected from a random distribution (20%). Although the positive half-period of these cycles reflected no significant difference from that predicted, the negative half-period of the sensitivity cycle had fewer accidents (37%) as compared with the predicted rate (46%). There does, therefore, appear to be a good correlation between the proposed cycles and motor vehicle accident occurences.