title: Prediction of vehicle crashes by drivers' characteristics and past traffic violations in Korea using a zero-inflated negative binomial model.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Traffic safety is a significant public health challenge, and vehicle crashes account for the majority of injuries. This study aims to identify whether drivers' characteristics and past traffic violations may predict vehicle crashes in Korea.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 500,000 drivers were randomly selected from the 11.6 million driver records of the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs in Korea. Records of traffic crashes were obtained from the archives of the Korea Insurance Development Institute. After matching the past violation history for the period 2004-2005 with the number of crashes in year 2006, a total of 488,139 observations were used for the analysis. Zero-inflated negative binomial model was used to determine the incident risk ratio (IRR) of vehicle crashes by past violations of individual drivers. The included covariates were driver's age, gender, district of residence, vehicle choice, and driving experience.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Drivers violating (1) a hit-and-run or drunk driving regulation at least once and (2) a signal, central line, or speed regulation more than once had a higher risk of a vehicle crash with respective IRRs of 1.06 and 1.15. Furthermore, female gender, a younger age, fewer years of driving experience, and middle-sized vehicles were all significantly associated with a higher likelihood of vehicle crashes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Drivers' demographic characteristics and past traffic violations could predict vehicle crashes in Korea. Greater resources should be assigned to the provision of traffic safety education programs for the high-risk driver groups.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Economics , Dong-A University , Busan , Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Dae-Hwan
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: b School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney , Australia.|c Centre for Applied Nursing Research (CANR), Ingham Institute of Applied Medical Research , Sydney , Australia.
authors.forename: Lucie M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Ramjan
authors.affiliation: d Department of Psychology , University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Kwok-Kei
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Mak
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: traffic violations; vehicle crashes; zero-inflated negative binomial model