On the long-run association between personality traits and road crashes: findings from the British cohort study

Abstract

Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for those aged 15–29 years and the ninth cause of death worldwide. Personality traits play an important role in explaining traffic crashes. We use data from the British Cohort Study 1970 to analyse the effect of the respondent's personality traits at age 10 on the probability of having had at least one injurious traffic crash at age 30. Our results support the hypothesis on the long-run associations between personality traits in childhood and injurious road crashes in adulthood, but only for men. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the level of conscientiousness at age 10 would lower men's likelihood of having at least one injurious traffic crash by approximately 3 percentage points. The association found in this paper may suggest that improving personality traits through educational programs could lower traffic crashes and risky driving behaviours.