Social Aspects of Exposure to Highway Crash

Abstract

Both the sources of funding for crash research and the characteristics of the investigators attracted to it tend to produce parochialism, segmentation, and specialization in the field as a whole. These potentially divisive forces are counteracted only by a shared and largely uncritical loyalty to the status quo-that is, a belief that the privately owned and operated conventional vehicle should continue as the major means of transportation. As a consequence, despite the increasingly favorable climate for crash research, recent findings have contributed little to the reduction of mortality and morbidity. The limitations of what is variously called human engineering, engineering psychology, or human factors are delineated, and a broader analytic framework is suggested.