Driving Accidents Up After Terror Attacks

Scientific studies are revealing considerable information about terrorism's emotional and behavioral consequences. One of the most recent to come to light is negative driving behavior, American and Israeli sociologists have found.

The researchers studied the impact of terror attacks on Israelis' driving injuries and driving fatalities from 2001 to 2002. Terror attacks were not associated with the number of serious driving injuries, but did have a small association with minor driving injuries and a greater one on motor vehicle fatalities. Specifically, three days after attacks, fatal driving accidents spiked 35 percent, with the number of accidents increasing even more after very severe attacks to 69 percent.

By four days or more after terror attacks, however, the number of accidents returned to normal levels.

The researchers offered several possible explanations. The three-day lag in driving fatalities might be a delayed reaction to violence and stress or attributable to covert suicides. One reason to believe the latter hypothesis is that there was no increase in serious driving accidents at the same time that driving fatalities increased. Another reason is studies of imitative suicides, which found that well-publicized suicides were followed three days later by a rise in traffic fatalities.

The study, “Terror Attacks Influence Driving Behavior in Israel,” appeared in the September 20-24 online edition of theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesat<www.pnas.org>.▪