A detailed analysis of the main causes of accidents has revealed that mobile phone use, driving while under the influence of drink or drugs, and poor vision could have contributed to far more accidents than previously thought.

Researchers from Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Essex believe that the under-reporting of these factors is to blame for the distorted accident information, and suggest that if the reporting system was overhauled lives could be saved.

Dr Jonathan Rolison, from the Department of Psychology at Essex, who was previously at Queen’s, led the study. He said: “To improve road safety, insight is needed into preventable causes of road accidents. Our research has uncovered inadequacies in the way the police record accident information. In particular, the contributing factors list in accident reports needs to be continuously updated to ensure accident statistics reflect the full range of factors that contribute to accidents.

“Our results also suggest that using a mobile app to fill in accident reports at the scene, rather than back at the station, would also be beneficial.”

In the study researches investigated the main causes of road accidents by drawing on multiple sources: the expert views of police officers, the lay views of the driving public and official road accident records for all one and two-car accidents in the UK between 2005 and 2012.

Participants were given details of six hypothetical accidents, involving both male and female drivers of varying ages, and were asked to identify what caused each one, and whether there were any other contributing factors. Their responses were then compared to the factors recorded in official accident reports.

Both police officers and the public identified drugs or alcohol, excessive speed, inexperience and distraction as typical of young driver collisions and medical conditions and poor eyesight as typical of older driver collisions. Driver distraction was viewed as a more typical problem for female drivers, while drugs or alcohol was rated as more likely to contribute to accidents involving men.

Dr Salissou Moutari from the School of Mathematics and Physics at Queen’s University Belfast added:  

“One of our main findings was concerned with mobile phone use and how this differed from what was reported in road accident records. In the hypothetical scenarios in our research police officers frequently identified drivers being distracted by mobile phones as a cause of accidents, but this factor was rarely reported in the official road accident records.  

“We have concluded that although a wealth of research has shown driver distraction, particularly using mobile phones, raises the risk of accidents, the road accident records suggest that it is likely to be an under-reported factor in accidents.”

Despite being rarely reported in accident records, drug or alcohol impairments were among the factors most frequently mentioned by police officers and the public as being contributory factors in accidents. 

As breath tests are not routinely carried out after accidents, and roadside drug tests were only introduced in the UK in 2015, researchers believe alcohol and drug impairment may be greatly under-reported. Under-reporting, due to inconsistent law enforcement practices, may also explain why poor eyesight does not feature in accident reports more frequently.

Researchers also tested whether people’s pre-conceived expectations of how young or old people drive, influenced their recall of what actually happened when presented with different scenarios.

“In general participants reported low confidence in their recall accuracy, indicating that when memory failed they may have guessed about the most likely factors to have caused an accident. We found that when memory fails, both police officers and the public, actually incorporate their prior expectations, rather than guess randomly, but this does suggest that any time-delay before an accident report is completed could lead to memory distortions that affect the reliability of the accident report,” added Dr Rolinson.

The report, which was written with Dr Salissou Moutari and Dr Aidan Feeney from Queen’s University Belfast, and Shirley Regev from Oxford Brookes University, has been published in Accident Analysis and Prevention.

Media

Media inquiries to Jemma Greenlees at Queen’s University Communications Office T; +44 (0)28 9097 3087 E; j.greenlees@qub.ac.uk.