Marital Status and Car Ownership as Related to Sex Differences in Traffic Accidents and Violations in a Two-Year Period

On the basis of considerable previous work in the collection and tabulation of motor vehicle accidents and traffic violations, the hypothesis that women are better accident risks than men has come to be widely accepted. According to Lauer (3) even when corrections are made for age and amount of driving exposure, women have fewer reported accidents and violations than men. Using this past information as a basis of approach, the present study was made in order to determine if the same relationships hold when the additional factors of marital status and car ownership are considered. Instead of asking questions of the form, Do men have~ more accidents than women? , this study was interested in questions such as, Do married men who own automobiles have more accidents than married women who own automobiles?\u27\u27 Essentially the purpose of the present study was to control on two variables which had hitherto been uncontrolled in comparisons of traffic accidents and violations between the sexes. The data which were available for use were such that only a partial answer to the problem could be obtained, but the information which was gathered was a start in this direction and suggested important future research to be done in the area