[Adolescents, risk situations and road safety].

OBJECTIVE Describe the risk behaviour relationships with road safety in adolescents. DESIGN Cross-sectional descriptive study. SETTING Madrid and Andalusia Regions, representative samples. PARTICIPANTS The sample included 3,612 in secondary school pupils from Madrid (n=1708) and Andalusia (n=1904). The survey was carried out during May and June 2007. MAIN MEASUREMENTS The data collected included sociodemographic areas (age, sex, grade, father's profession, birth place, etc.) and risk situation and behaviour (risk behaviour as driver or passenger). RESULTS 16.2% of the adolescents have been involved in a dangerous situation with motorcycles during the last year. 16.7% never use a helmet when riding a motorcycle and 62% do not wear one when riding a bicycle on the road; 17.4% frequently ride a motorcycle over the speed limit and 24.5% when driving a car. There are significant differences regarding sex, grade and region (Madrid or Andalusia). There are four factors which explain 62% of the variance: drug factor, speed factor, security factor and passenger factor. Two of these have twice the probability of having a dangerous situation when riding a motorcycle: drug factor (OR=1.96; 95% CI, 1.77-2.18) and the speed factor ((OR=2.13; 95% CI, 1.92-2.36). CONCLUSIONS Adolescents in higher grades and living in Andalusia were less road safety conscious. This pattern should be taken into account when designing preventive actions in Road Safety Education.