A COMPARISON OF THE DRIVING RECORD ABSTRACTS FOR TREATMENT AND CONTROL SUBJECTS INVOLVED IN PURSUING THE HUMAN SIDE OF DRIVING PROJECT

A traffic safety course entitled Pursuing the Human Side of Driving was developed by a designated task force and emphasized persons' attitudes and values as it relates to the decision making process. It was not known whether exposure to such a course would affect driving behavior.; This study compared driving record abstracts of 557 southwestern Washington high school seniors who took PHSD with 575 southwestern Washington high school seniors who did not take the course. Although not a record of all driving behavior, the driving record abstract is a State of Washington maintained record of all citations, accidents and driver improvements contacts.; Of the 557 treatment group subjects 317 were males and 240 were females; while the 575 control group subjects were 306 and 269 males and females respectively. The PHSD course was nine weeks in length and all PHSD teachers were regular classroom teachers who had been specifically trained in the PHSD curriculum.; The PHSD course was a federally funded pilot curriculum in safety education aimed at reducing automotive accidents through instruction in a decision making course.; Specifically, the research answered whether the PHSD reduced accidents or citations, and whether types of citations were different for treatment and control subjects. In each instance comparisons were subdivided by males and females as well.; The statistical procedures used to analyze the data included two way analysis of variance, independent t test and Chi Square tests. All levels of significance were calculated at .05 or below.; Analysis of the subjects' driving record abstracts was made for the 14 months prior to exposure to the class, the seven months during which various members of the PHSD classes had completed the class, and the fourteen months following graduation. It was found that 725 of the 1132 subjects involved in the study had either a traffic citation and/or accident during these three years.; Analysis indicated that the PHSD course did not significantly reduce the total number of accidents either during or following the PHSD class. Similarly, no differences in numbers of accidents appeared between the treatment and control groups based on the sex of the driver.; Similarly no significant differences existed between the groups in numbers of citations prior to or during the PHSD class. Significant differences did exist following exposure to the class but these favored the control group and had a strength of only .01.; The PHSD course did not significantly reduce any specific types of citations when total groups were compared. While some significant differences did emerge analyzing specific citations by sex of the driver these were usually based upon small sample sizes and did not follow a consistent pattern of favoring either the treatment or control population.; A graphic analysis of the geographic area where students received their citations indicated that the PHSD course had no effect in altering where teenagers received their citations.; The companion questions answered by the research indicated that females received significantly fewer citations than did males but have accidents in proportionately equal numbers to males. It was concluded from this that if citations are to be a valid predictor of future accidents differing rates must be applied to males and females.; The general conclusions were that the PHSD course as taught for nine weeks at the senior year in high school was not effective as a safety education device when considering recorded driving behavior. The desired objective of fewer accidents and citations based on changes in decision making was not accomplished.