A study of accident drivers in Iowa for five years reveals that fatal-accident drivers are mostly men. The 20-24 year and the 60-64 year groups show an excess of accident drivers. Five per cent of drivers did not carry a license. Out-of-state drivers have twice as many accidents as expected

Lauer, A. R.

Swanson, C. O.

English

Name not available

Who Are the Fatal Accident Drivers in Iowa?

University of Northern Iowa

Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of ScienceVolume 66 | Annual Issue Article 551959Who Are the Fatal Accident Drivers in Iowa?C. O. SwansonIowa State UniversityA. R. LauerIowa State UniversityCopyright © Copyright 1959 by the Iowa Academy of Science, Inc.Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/piasThis Research is brought to you for free and open access by UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Proceedings of the Iowa Academyof Science by an authorized editor of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact scholarworks@uni.edu.Recommended CitationSwanson, C. O. and Lauer, A. R. (1959) "Who Are the Fatal Accident Drivers in Iowa?," Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science: Vol.66: No. 1 , Article 55.Available at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/pias/vol66/iss1/55Who Are the Fatal Accident Drivers in Iowa? By C. 0. SWANSON and A. R. LAUER Abstract. A study of accident drivers in Iowa for five years reveals that fatal-accident drivers are mostly men. The 20-24 year and the 60-64 year groups show an excess of accident drivers. Five per cent of drivers did not carry a license. Out-of-state drivers have twice as many accidents as expected. Various estimates have been made on the percentage of Iowa drivers on the roads as compared with that of the out-of-state cars. This varies with the section of the state and with the particular road studied. Along the borders of the state a higher percentage of drivers are probably carrying out-of-state licenses. On the country roads in the center of the state practically all would be expected to be in-state drivers. On the main truck lines carrying national traffic one would find a higher percentage of out-of-state cars. In 195 7 there was a total of 114 out-of-state drivers involved in fatal accidents. About 95 per cent were male and 5 per cent fem.ale. There were 715 Iowa resident drivers involved in fatal accidents. The percentages are about 86.3 per cent resident compared with 13.7 per cent nonresident. It was not expected that this percentage of nonresident fatal accident drivers in the state would be so high. At least the percentage of miles driven would probably be much less and some offhand estimates placed the out-of-state car mileage at something around one per cent or less. In one study by the Iowa Highway Commission it was found that about 6.8 per cent of mileage generated in the State of Iowa is by foreign cars, that is, cars registered outside of the state. This is higher than our original estimate by informed persons, but is the most reliable data available. It may not be a true p'.cture of the drivers generating the miles, however, over a period of time. METHOD AND PROCEDURE Since some students of traffic are inclined to blame accidents on certain age groups, out-of-state drivers, drunken drivers, etc., it was thought worthwhile to analyze data from the state files in Iowa to see whether out-of-state drivers have more than their share of accidents. The method used was that of analyzing the data for 1952, 1953, 1954, 1956, and 1957, and breaking down the fatal-accident group into resident and nonresident drivers. These groups were tabulated 395 1Swanson and Lauer: Who Are the Fatal Accident Drivers in Iowa?Published by UNI ScholarWorks, 1959396 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIE~CE [Vol. 66 into five-year age groups ranging from 14 to 85 and over. The data were then tabulated and are shown in Tables 1, 2 and 3. Table I Driving Records of Male Iowa Drivers Involved in Fatal Accidents During 19571 Drivers with Drivers with Total no previous a previous number of record of record of drivers accidents accidents involved Per Cent Age and/or Per Cent and/or Per Cent in fatal Iowa Group violations of all violations of total accidents Drivers (1) (2) (3) ( 4) (5) (6) (7) 14 & below 3 0.46 1 0.15 4 0.61 15-19 39 5.95 46 7.02 85 12.98 20-24 27 4.12 83 12.67 110 16.79 25-29 37 5.65 51 7.79 88 13.44 30-34 15 2.29 47 7.18 62 9.47 35-39 33 5.04 18 2.75 51 7.79 40-44 24 3.66 22 3.36 46 7.02 45-49 20 3.05 23 3.51 43 6.56 50-54 18 2.75 16 2.44 34 5.19 55-59 15 2.29 16 2.44 31 4.73 60-64 17 2.60 8 1.22 25 3.82 65-69 21 3.21 15 2.29 36 5.50 70-74 10 1.53 9 1.37 19 2.90 75-79 6 0.92 7 1.07 13 1.98 80-84 1 0.15 3 0.46 4 0.61 85 & over 1 0.15 3 0.46 4 0.61 Totals 287 43.82 368 56.18 655 100.00 . -----lA 1958 sample of all male licensees indicates that 30.6 accident and/ or violation record in the files. per cent of all drivers have an Table 2 Drivers by Age and Place of Residence Involved in Fatal Accidents in Iowa During 1957 Licensed U.S. Iowa Drivers Non resident Drivers All Drivers Per cent Age Per cent Per cent Percent of all Group Number of total Number of total Number of total drivers (1) (2) (3) ( 4) (5) (6) (7) (8) 14 & under 4 0.48 0 0.00 4 0.48 0.02 15-19 90 10.86 7 0.84 97 11.70 8.07 20-24 114 13.75 21 2.53 135 16.28 11.64 25-29 97 11.70 13 1.57 110 13.27 13.16 30-34 69 8.32 11 1.33 80 9.65 11.97 35-39 57 6.88 16 1.93 73 8.81 10.80 40-44 54 6.51 14 1.69 68 8.20 9.24 45-49 46 5.55 4 0.48 50 6.03 8.54 50-54 40 4.83 4 0.48 44 5.31 7.66 55-59 35 4.22 9 1.09 44 5.31 6.26 60-64 30 3.62 5 0.61 35 4.22 4.94 65-69 38 4.58 5 0.61 43 5.19 3.59 70-74 20 2.41 3 0.36 23 2.77 2.18 75-79 13 1.57 1 0.12 14 1.69 1.36 80-84 4 0.48 0 0.00 4 0.48 0.61 85 & over 4 0.48 1 0.12 5 0.60 0.26 Totals 715 86.24 114 13.76 829 100.00 100.30 2Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, Vol. 66 [1959], No. 1, Art. 55https://scholarworks.uni.edu/pias/vol66/iss1/551959] FATAL ACCIDENT DRIVERS 397 By reference to Table 2 a comparison is made between the Iowa resident and the nonresident fatal accident drivers. Only the totals can be compared because of the small number of female drivers involved in fatal accidents. With reference to the percentage column of Table 2 at the extreme right, it is shown that of all drivers the 20-24 year individuals have considerably more fatal accidents. The order of magnitude is approximately the same for the resident and nonresident drivers so far as ages are concerned with the exception of the 60- 7 5 year olds. This may be due to the number of retired persons driving through the state. Table 3 Comparison by Years of Percentages of Iowa and Nonresident Drivers Involved in Fatal Accidents Year (1) 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 Averages 1957 Iowa Drivers (2) 79.78 78.74 81.31 80.10 79.98 82.63 Nonresident Drivers No License Not Stated Total ---- ------------(3) (4) (5) 14.46 5.29 0.47 14.96 5.77 0.53 13.99 4.44 0.26 (N 0 T A V A I L A B L E) 15.02 4.17 0.71 14.61 4.92 0.49 12.15 4.31 0.91 (6) 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 Table 3 makes a comparison of five years of the percentages of Iowa and nonresident drivers involved in fatal accidents. This varies from about 80 per cent for 1952, to nearly 83 per cent in 1957. The figure remained fairly constant from 1952 through 1956 and aver-aged about 80 per cent. It is not entirely clear what these figures indicate but they were fairly consistent. There were a certain num-ber that were not identified as to state or had no license. These percentages remain fairly constant however throughout the period. Various interpretations may be made from these data but the only valid one seems to be that there has been practically no vari-ation in the percentages of accidents of nonresident fatal accident drivers compared to resident drivers for a five-year period from 1952-1957. It is interesting to note, however, that close to 5 per cent of the drivers did not have a license. Most of them doubtless reside in Iowa. This seems to be a high percentage. CONCLUSIONS In an attempt to answer the question as to what per cent of drivers in fatal accidents in Iowa are resident and what percentage are non-resident, a study was made from available sources and the data incorporated into the present paper. Within the limits of the in-vestigation and considering the methods used, only the following interpretations can be given with a reasonable margin of error. 3Swanson and Lauer: Who Are the Fatal Accident Drivers in Iowa?Published by UNI ScholarWorks, 1959~98 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE [Vol. 66 1. Approximately 86 per cent of the fatal accidents in Iowa are due to drivers licensed within the state. Approximately 14 per cent of the fatal accidents in Iowa are occasioned by drivers licensed in other states. Ninety-five per cent of these out-of-state drivers are males. 2. Approximately 93.2 per cent of the mileage generated in the state is done by resident cars; whereas 6.8 per cent is generated by out-of-state cars. 3. This would show slightly over 50 per cent more fatal accidenb for out-of-state drivers than would be expected. 4. Approximately five per cent of drivers involved in fatal acci-dents in Iowa do not have a license. This seems quite high con-c;idering the fact all drivers are supposed to have a license. Literature Cited Iowa Department of Public Safety, 1958, Accident Records. IOWA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY DEs MOINES, lowA DRIVING RESEARCH LABORATORY lowA STATE UNIVERSITY AMES, lowA 4Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, Vol. 66 [1959], No. 1, Art. 55https://scholarworks.uni.edu/pias/vol66/iss1/55

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Who Are the Fatal Accident Drivers in Iowa?

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