ACCIDENT LIABILITY AND HUMAN FACTORS - RESEARCHING THE RELATIONSHIP

Because human error is a major contributory factor in road accidents, there is a strong case for attempting to gain an understanding of the role of human factors in relation to safety. This paper suggests that studies of "accident liability" could significantly advance our understanding of this topic, and provide a basis for further behavioural studies. There are two main difficulties in this type of work. One is the sheer complexity of the accident situation, and the other is the statistics of rare events. These problems are discussed in the paper as a preliminary to the description of a recent study of self-reported accidents experienced by a group of "accident involved" drivers. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the relationship between the statistical approach to accident liability and other types of behavioural research. It is suggested that behavioural studies (for safety) would be better targeted if their role was that of "explaining" the associations (or differences) in accident liability revealed by the statistical analysis. (TRRL)