The Detection of Individual Differences in Accident Susceptibility

Abstract

To those who have studied accidents, it has often seemed that there are accident-prone individuals who have more than their share of accidents. A more specific hypothesis is that there are stable differences in susceptibility to a particular kind of accident among individuals exposed to the same risk. If substantial individual differences in susceptibility actually exist, approaches to the scientific understanding and to the prevention of accidents should take somewhat different directions than they should if these differences are minor. Obviously, some members of any group have more accidents than others; and there is some reason to think that some people have more accidents per unit of hazard than others [e.g., 30]. However, differences in accident rates may be due simply to the random nature of the accident variables, so that predictions made on the basis of past accident records may not be of much value. If, as has often turned out, the persons who seem this year to be accident prone do not look that way next year, we have not learned very much this year. The aim of this article is to review critically the methods which have been used to detect differential accident susceptibility. For convenience, the methods are discussed under three headings.