Citation

Sheehan M, Siskind V, Greenslade J. Proc. Australas. Road Safety Res. Policing Educ. Conf. 2002; 6(1): 237-243.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, copyright holder varies, Publisher Monash University)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The present paper reports preliminary findings from a longitudinal study of early adolescent drink driving and later involvement in fatal and hospitalised injury crashes. The paper explores the extent to which selected social and psychological factors which drew on these studies were associated with drink driving and other at risk behaviours and ultimately could predict later involvement in serious traffic crashes. Five thousand students were surveyed from 41 randomly selected Queensland state high schools at the end of the first semester in grade ten in 1988. The strongest associations with heavier drinking were the familial variables of parental modelling of drink driving and access to parents' cars for underage driving. There were small but significant correlations between drink driving and delinquency and subsequent crash involvement. Drink driving and delinquency were jointly significantly predictive in a logistic regression on crash involvement. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.