Human Health Factors and Traffic Accidents among Taxi Drivers in the Seoul Area

서울지역에 있어서 직업운전자의 건강상태가 교통사고에 미치는 영향

The present status of the traffic accident rate in Korea shows that it is the highest in the world with a continuously increasing trend. Human factors account for 90% of the causes of traffic accidents. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine some human factors related to traffic accidents by studying the relationship between health status and traffic accidents. To accomplish this purpose, all taxi companies located in the Seoul area were divided in three groups according to the number of taxi possessed, then some companies in each ?roup were randomly selected for study, and a total of 222 drivers in those selected companies were questioned and examined from April 15 to April 22, 1989. Seventy drivers among 222 had experienced a traffic accident. A $x^2$-test was performed on the data, then, factor analysis and discrminant analysis were executed with the following results: 1. The drivers complaining of gastroenteric symptoms numbered 110(49.5%), which was the major symptom among all drivers complaining of poor health. 2. In the primary analysis, variables related to traffic accidents were divided into general, occupational, and health characteristics. Drivers having no traffic accident experience and drivers having that experience were subjected to question about age, educational level, residential status, monthly average income, working hours and days, degree of satisfaction with their profession and homelife, degree of worry about health. degree of fatigue, medication, drunken driving, and illness, but there were no statistical significances. 3. In the factor analysis, the 8 health variables which cause traffic accidents were classified into 3 common factors which were perceived health factor, sleeping and drunken driving, and visual acuity and smoking factor. Perceived health was the factor which contributed most to explaining accidents. 4. In the discriminant analysis, a correct prediction rate of 68.0% was obtained in the factors of all the characteristics. 5. Degree of sttisfaction with their homelife and educational and economic factor in the general characteristics, degree of satisfaction with their profession in the occupational characteristics, and sleeping and drunken driving in the health characteristics were selected as statistically significant factors to discriminant the traffic accident. 6. Among the factors of the general, occupational, and health characteristics, degree of satisfaction with their homelife, driving experience, family factor, perceived factor were selected as the statistically significant factors.