Printed in the USA Society’s Aggression Level as a Predictor of Traffic Fatality Rate

This research investigated the relationship of violence/aggression and other societal variables to traffic accidents. In the first of two studies, multi-ple regression was applied to 1977 data from each of the 59 states and the Dist-rict of Columbia. Traffic fatalities per registered vehicle was the dependent variable. The independent variables were homicide rate, suicide rate, fatal-ity rate from other causes, unemployment rate, personal income, density of physicians, alcohol consumption, motor vehicles per capita, road mileage per vehicle, sex and age distribution of drivers, and attained education. The main finding was that the homicide rate (but not the suicide rate) predicted the traf-fic fatality rate; additional significant predictors were the proportion of young drivers and the fatality rate from non-motor;vehicle accidents. The two pri-mary predictors (homicides and young drivers) accounted for 64 % of the vari-ance of traffic fatalities. In the second study, validation was performed by using the 1977 regression coefficients to estimate 1978 traffic fatalities. The results indicate that when the 1977 regression coefficients were applied to the 1978 values for homicides and young drivers, they accounted for 49 % of the variance of the 1978 traffic fatalities. The findings are discussed in terms of how society’s violence/aggression may contribute to traffic accidents. The relationship between traffic fatalities and measures of aggression and violence has interested researchers for some time. For example, Porterfield (1960) and Whitlock (1971) have shown strong positive correla-tions between homicide/suicide rates in a given region (e.g., metropolitan areas, U.S. states, countries) and the corresponding motor vehicle fatalities. On the basis of such results, Whitlock concluded that “road-death and injury rates are the results, to a consider