| There is a basic hypothesis that the
majority of serious motoring offences are derived from accidents, and there is
nothing in the offender's personality or background that predisposes him to
break the law. If an accident is a chance event that happens so quickly and
suddenly that it is beyond anyone's control to prevent it, then it is clear that
this hypothesis is disproved. For only about 14 per cent of the 653 offences
considered in a recent survey could possibly be called inadvertent accidents in
this sense, and even this estimate is stretching credulity to its limits. In the
great majority of cases the offences were largely of the offenders' own making.
In 11 per cent of the 653 cases and 21 per cent of 43 offenders who were
interviewed there was evidence of selfish, and even ruthless, self-interest, but
it was not possible to infer personality disturbance in more than 25 per cent of
the 653 and 39 per cent of the 43 offenders. Though the inferences with regard
to personality traits may be an overestimate in the interpretation of
qualitative data, they could equally be an underestimate, since so very little
was ever recorded about the offenders themselves. The lack of data is a
consequence of the almost total lack of interest in motoring offenders as
persons. It must be assumed, therefore, in the absence of evidence to the
contrary that the majority of serious motoring offenders considered in the
survey were normal people, who succumbed to temptation when circumstances were
favourable and it was expedient to take a chance, so perhaps there is something
in the normal personality that predisposes a driver to break the law. Whatever
it is, its presence is much more evident in males than in females, since the
analysis of the national statistics shows a predominance of males over females
of between 18:1 and 22:1. The real significance of these figures is hard to assess, because the relative proportions of each sex at risk are unknown. One research worker produced a ratio of six males to one female from his sample of insurance policy holders, but this is almost certainly an underestimate since many females — probably more than males — are likely to be driving on someone else's policy. A ration of three to one is probably nearer to the real state of affairs. Females reached noticeable proportions only among the hit-and-run drivers, and there seems to be some justification for calling this the feminine offence. The difference between the sexes in their relative propensity to break the law on the roads is important, because it shows that motoring offenders have a characteristic in common with offenders in other fields of criminal activity, where males predominate to a marked degree. One motor insurance underwriter recently announced his intention to offer discounts on premiums where the policy holder or the named driver was a woman. The basic hypothesis is further disproved by the very high incidence, among the offences studied, of failing to insure against third-party risks. Yet accidents brought to light only a very small percentage of this kind of crime. Moreover, it could not possibly be said that this, the most common of the serious offences, was brought about by providence. On the contrary, it can be regarded as a typical form of economic crime, which, although sometimes committed through inadvertence, is more usually quite deliberate and calculated. |