Critique of Sam Peltzman's study: The effects of automobile safety regulation

https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-4575(76)90004-XGet rights and content

Abstract

The variables used in Peltzman's analysis were reviewed. It was concluded that some of them were arbitrarily chosen, that some were correlated, and that important factors were omitted. This may cause spurious and biased correlations. Peltzman's time series regression equations were reconstructed and found unstable, which makes them useless for predictions which are one basis for Peltzman's conclusions. The cross-sectional analyses were found to be unvalidated. Their results for important factors disagreed with those from the time series analysis. Peltzman's conclusions on the role of young drivers were compared with their actual accident involvement and found to disagree. To illustrate the misuse of trend models, a “model” for pedestrian deaths was constructed which leads to conclusions contradicting Peltzman's.

References (21)

  • Are government programs worth the price?

    Business Week

    (1975)
  • The Center for the Environment and Man, Inc.

    Evaluation of Motor Vehicle Safety Standards

    (September 1973)
  • Department of Transportation

    Automobile Insurance and Compensation Study. Automobile Personal Injury Claims

    (1970)
  • N.R. Draper et al.

    Applied Regression Analysis

    (1966)
  • J.A. Fee
    (1970)
  • R.J. Freund

    A warning of round-off errors in regression

    American Statistician

    (December 1963)
  • J.W. Garrett

    An Evaluation of Door Lock Effectiveness: Pre-1956, vs Post-1955 Automobiles

    (1961)
  • W. Guzzardi

    Putting the cuffs on capitalism

    Fortune

    (April 1975)
  • Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

    1969–1972 Low Speed Crash Result Charts, Status Report

    (January 31, 1973)
  • Irwin

    Car safety rule called waste, risk

    The Detroit News

    (January 29, 1975)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (0)

Part of this study was supported by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

View full text