Accident proneness

Nature

Certain types of people seem to have a propensity to have accidents more often than others. Being labelled 'accident prone' could significantly limit employment possibilities, make one socially unacceptable, and result in a degrading self-image.

Incidence

A recent major study on road accidents has shown that it is possible to lower the accident rate in a transport company by using psychological tests (which have been subjected to repeated cross validation) to screen out the bad accident risk people on the basis of their intelligence, psychomotor functions, personality, social attitudes and interpersonal relationships.

Counter-claim

It is difficult to statistically substantiate accident proneness or to rigidly define it. Accident proneness is not a simple phenomenon; it will manifest itself differently in different people and to different degrees. A person could be careful in one area but reckless in another; therefore it is necessary to consider the multi-dimensional complexity of this problem before labelling someone accident prone.