Driver Celeration Behavior and the Prediction of Traffic Accidents

A study was undertaken to investigate whether driver celeration (overall mean speed change) behavior can predict traffic accident involvement. Also, to test whether acceleration, deceleration or the combined celeration measure was the better predictor. Bus driver celeration behavior was measured repeatedly in real traffic, driving en route, and correlated with accidents for which the drivers were deemed at least partly responsible. Correlations around .20 were found in several samples between celeration behavior and culpable accidents for a 2-year period. The results show that although celeration behavior is only semi-stable over time, it predicts with some accuracy individual accident involvement over 2 years. The predictive power of acceleration and deceleration was slightly lower than the combined measure, in accordance with theory. The correlations found were strong enough to warrant the use of celeration behavior as a predictive variable for transportation companies in their safety work.