Scots veterans 30% more at risk from road crash injury
SCOTS military veterans are 30 per cent more likely to be injured in a road crash than those who have never served in the armed forces, according to a new study.
Past studies have revealed concerns that soldiers with an “I’m invincible” mentality threw caution to the wind after coming back from conflict zones.
Now researchers at the University of Glasgow who examined 57,000 veterans in Scotland and 173,000 non-veterans, said early service leavers (ESLS), defined as those with having two-and-a-half years’ service, were most at risk, whether or not they had completed initial training.
The report said: “We have shown that over the study period as a whole, the risk of RTA (road traffic accident) in veterans was increased compared with non-veterans, with the highest increase in those with the shortest service (ESL).”
They said that indicated that there were reasons beyond military service that made former servicemen more susceptible than civilians to being involved in road traffic accidents. The greatest risk was in people in their 30s, irrespective of the time since they had left service.
The report did not find any evidence that the period immediately following discharge was especially risky, suggesting the Ministry of Defence (MOD) road safety programme is proving effective. The report said: “The increase in risk in veteran car drivers accords with earlier research showing increased prevalence of risky driving behaviour in serving personnel and suggests that this pattern persists into post-service life.”
Twelve years ago, the MOD introduced a new programme of road safety education in response to growing evidence on both sides of the Atlantic of the increased risk of road traffic accidents in military personnel.
In 2002, research was published in the US showing that people who had been deployed to the Gulf had an increased risk of being involved in a road traffic accident on returning home.
Studies in the UK also showed that British troops were also at increased risk on return from deployment, and that risky driving was common in people who were serving.
In 2009, one report said that soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were twice as likely to be killed in car crashes while off-duty than other drivers. The army reported at the time that they believed soldiers aged between 17 and 24 were most at risk – a similar age group to that for civilian drivers.
Officers at the time felt that the high death rate was despite soldiers being among the most highly-trained drivers, as many of them have to drive Land Rovers and other military vehicles as part of their duties.
Researcher Dr Beverly Bergman said: “This is an important study which has confirmed that there has been an increased risk of road traffic accidents in military veterans which is unrelated to deployment, but it is now reducing. The high risk in people who have only served for a short time is likely to reflect lifestyle risk factors which are unrelated to their military service.”
The study, which used data from the Scottish Veterans Health Study to examine rates of hospitalisation and death as a result of road traffic accidents, recommended that future research should be aimed at early service leavers and a “more in-depth identification of risk factors”.