Indiana Traffic Safety Facts: Driver History and Crash Outcomes 2011

Abstract

Are repeat-offender drivers more likely to be involved in crashes with serious bodily injury? Of drivers that were alcohol-impaired in crashes, how many had prior convictions for OWI?This fact sheet links data from the official Indiana crash outcomes repository with data on convictions for traffic offenses among specific drivers involved in traffic crashes. In linking data for drivers rather than on aggregate trends of total convictions, we can understand how the history of driver behavior can predict crash outcomes and the contributing factors to them. Traffic crash data come from the Automated Reporting Information Exchange System (ARIES), an electronic repository for all police-reported crashes in Indiana. Data on traffic offense convictions for drivers involved in police-reported crashes come from the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) offense dataset. Driver-linked crashes occurring from 2009 through 2011 are used for this report. A driver is identified as having a “history of traffic offenses” if he or she was convicted for moving violations up to five years prior to the crash date.