Forecasting Highway Casualties - The British Road Safety Act and a Sense of Deja Vu

• NCJ Number: 93984
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 12 Issue: 2 Dated: (1984) Pages: 101-114
• Author(s): L Phillips; S Ray; H L Votey
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 14 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper reexamines the effect of the introduction of the British Road Safety Act of 1967.

Abstract

We construct a dynamic model relating monthly road casualties to road traffic, rainfall, and alcohol consumption, standardizing for the seasonality in the data. An intervention variable captures the effect of the Road Safety Act. The findings confirm Ross's earlier conclusion that the Road Safety Act significantly reduces casualties. However, we find that the Road Safety Act only accounts for 2.7 percent of the variance in road casualties, while miles-driven and rainfall account for 48.8 percent, and alcohol consumption explains 4.2 percent. Our model forecasts accurately for 24 months beyond December 1972, the last month used for estimation. (Author abstract)