Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Connecticut, United States.
Nathan Tefft Worked on This Project Prior to Joining Amazon.com While a Faculty Member at Bates College, United States.
J Safety Res. 2022 Sep;82:176-183. doi: 10.1016/j.jsr.2022.05.009. Epub 2022 May 28.
The presence of passengers can affect the driving behavior of motor-vehicle operators. Child passengers present unique motivations to drive more safely, as well as opportunities to distract drivers. Because motor-vehicle crashes are an important cause of premature childhood mortality, this study assesses whether adult drivers with child passengers are more or less likely to cause a fatal crash.
Data include fatal crashes involving one or two vehicles from 2007 to 2017 in the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System. We apply methods developed by Levitt and Porter (2001) and Dunn and Tefft (2020) -the LPDT approach- to estimate the risk that adult drivers (21 years or older) with at least one child passenger (15 year or younger) cause a fatal crash relative to adults without child passengers.
Childhood crash exposure when traveling with an adult driver is low: 0.78% of vehicle miles traveled by adults included a child passenger. Nevertheless, adult drivers with child passengers were significantly more likely to cause a fatal crash than adult drivers without child passengers. The estimated risk of causing a single-vehicle crash was 6.2 times higher among the full sample of adults, 7.2 times higher among female drivers, and 5.0 times higher among drivers 25-44 years old.
Despite their relatively low crash exposure, child passengers are associated with much greater risk of causing a fatal crash.
This study not only informs about the need to develop interventions to remind parents and adult drivers of the risks associated with driving children, but also reminds researchers about the enormous potential of the LPDT approach when applied to traffic safety issues.
乘客的存在会影响机动车驾驶员的驾驶行为。儿童乘客具有更安全驾驶的独特动机，同时也有机会分散驾驶员的注意力。由于机动车事故是儿童早逝的一个重要原因，因此本研究评估了有儿童乘客的成年驾驶员是否更有可能或更不可能导致致命事故。
数据包括 2007 年至 2017 年美国伤亡分析报告系统中涉及一辆或两辆车的致命事故。我们应用 Levitt 和 Porter（2001）以及 Dunn 和 Tefft（2020）开发的方法- LPDT 方法-来估计至少有一名儿童乘客（15 岁或以下）的成年驾驶员（21 岁或以上）导致致命事故的风险相对于没有儿童乘客的成年驾驶员。
与成年人一起旅行时，儿童的车祸暴露率较低：成年人行驶的车辆里程中，有 0.78%包括儿童乘客。尽管如此，有儿童乘客的成年驾驶员发生致命事故的可能性明显高于没有儿童乘客的成年驾驶员。在成年人的全样本中，导致单车事故的估计风险高出 6.2 倍，女性驾驶员高出 7.2 倍，25-44 岁驾驶员高出 5.0 倍。
尽管儿童的车祸暴露率相对较低，但他们导致致命事故的风险要大得多。
本研究不仅表明需要开发干预措施，以提醒父母和成年驾驶员与驾驶儿童相关的风险，还提醒研究人员在应用于交通安全问题时，LPDT 方法具有巨大的潜力。
