The Relationship Between Self-Control and Car Accidents

Car accidents are one of the major causes of death and serious injuries all over the world. human factors, especially psychological factors play an important role in accident occurrence. this study was conducted in order to determine the relationship between self-control and car accidents based on demographic factors in gonabad, in 2011. in this correlation study, 440 drivers in gonabad (219 females, 221 males) were selected with non-probability sampling method, using morgan table. they all fulfilled personal information and schneider self-control questionnaires (1974). data were analyzed with spss-18 software using t-test, one-way anova, stepwise regression-test and fisher’s test. data showed that 80.9% of drivers suffer from low self-control. there was a strong negative correlation between self-control and car accident (p < 0.05). there was no relationship between self–control and gender, age, marital status, occupation, level of education and frequency of accidents in drivers with previous history of accident (p > 0.05). stepwise regression test showed that gender and self-control are correlated with accident occurrence. considering the results of our study, it seems that paying more attention to all factors affecting car accident is a necessity and in order to reduce car accident rate, preparing a long-term plan for self-control education and evaluation should be put in to consideration.