Criminal on the Road

By T. C. Willett. {Tavistock, 42s.) American research findings suggest that accident-prone drivers as a group from accident-free drivers in being significantly more often aggressive, extro^ sexually promiscuous, having a police record, and being reared in a conflict-ri1 home. These characteristics are so like those alleged to be associated with delinque'1'' that Dr. Willett was led to question the common assumption that persons convi^ of traffic violations differ from other kinds of offender in being generally respect^ and law-abiding, apart from their driving. His research was based on an analysis of 653 convictions for six "serious" offei^ of which driving dangerously or recklessly (285 cases), failing to stop after accident (117 cases) and driving "under the influence" (104 cases) were the fl11 frequent. In order not to swamp the sample, only one in ten of the actual numbef offences of failing to insure were counted, and these amounted to 73 cases. As with other types of offenders, males outnumbered females by 12 to 1, and majority were manual workers. Motor cyclists were over-represented among offend' A considerable proportion, over a fifth, had been previously convicted of an equf serious motoring offence. Most striking of all, 21% had a record of previous crifl1^ convictions for offences unconnected with motoring (77% in the case of the offenders convicted of driving while disqualified). About 11% were categorised ruthless, shameless, or violent offenders, who had little apparent concern for safety of others and seemed indifferent to social or legal sanctions. ,