Adolescents, risk situations and road safety

OBJECTIVE: Describe the risk behaviour relationships with road safety in adolescents. DESIGN: Cross-sectional descriptive study. SETTING: Madrid and Andalusia Regions, representative samples. PARTICIPANTS: The sample included 3,612 in secondary school pupils from Madrid (n=1708) and Andalusia (n=1904). The survey was carried out during May and June 2007. MAIN MEASUREMENTS: The data collected included sociodemographic areas (age, sex, grade, father's profession, birth place, etc.) and risk situation and behaviour (risk behaviour as driver or passenger). RESULTS: 16.2% of the adolescents have been involved in a dangerous situation with motorcycles during the last year. 16.7% never use a helmet when riding a motorcycle and 62% do not wear one when riding a bicycle on the road; 17.4% frequently ride a motorcycle over the speed limit and 24.5% when driving a car. There are significant differences regarding sex, grade and region (Madrid or Andalusia). There are four factors which explain 62% of the variance: drug factor, speed factor, security factor and passenger factor. Two of these have twice the probability of having a dangerous situation when riding a motorcycle: drug factor (OR=1.96; 95% CI, 1.77-2.18) and the speed factor ((OR=2.13; 95% CI, 1.92-2.36). CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents in higher grades and living in Andalusia were less road safety conscious. This pattern should be taken into account when designing preventive actions in Road Safety Education. Language: es