title: First car-to-car crashes involving young adult drivers: main patterns and their relation to car and driver characteristics.
abstract: The primary objective of the study was to examine the relationship between patterns in car-to-car crashes involving young drivers and car and driver characteristics and the research design was a national register-based prospective cohort study. Individual records in a cohort born 1970-1972 are linked to road-traffic-crash data (1988-2000). Subjects' first police-registered two-car crash leading to severe or fatal injury (n = 4875) are identified. Typical crash patterns are highlighted and associations between pattern and both car and individual socio-demographic characteristics are tested. Four crash patterns are highlighted. Male drivers and those with lower educational attainment are over-represented in all patterns. Pattern-based risk levels vary considerably according to car safety level and driver's age at time of injury and socio-economic status. Crash patterns might be considered in young adult driver education systems, bearing in mind the consistent higher risks of male drivers and of drivers with lower educational attainment.
authors.affiliation: Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social Medicine, SE-171 76, Stockholm, Sweden. lucie.laflamme@ki.se
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Laflamme
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hasselberg
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kullgren
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vaez
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000145:classification*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001334:Automobile Driving; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012737:Sex Factors; D012923:Social Class; D013548:Sweden