Violence on the road - a logical extension to the subculture of violence thesis?

Abstract

This research is based on a study of serious motoring offenders in New Zealand. The social characteristics of 1509 serious motoring offenders convicted in courts throughout New Zealand during the five years 1965 to 1969 are analysed, and each offender's pattern of motoring and non-motoring offending over a period of up to fifteen years is traced. Comparisons are made with similar studies undertaken in United States, United Kingdom and Australia. The offenders' driving behaviour is examined in terms of sociological theory and in particular a proposed extension to Wolfgang and Ferracuti's (1967) subculture of violence thesis where violence on the road is included. The importance of the role that subcultural theory is likely to play in any future development of a fully social theory of deviance is discussed, and the current status of both subcultural theory and the subculture of violence thesis is reviewed. The findings indicate that the serious motoring offender in New Zealand has distinctive characteristics of sex, race, age, social class and criminal record. The serious motoring offender is more likely to be young, male, of non-European ethnic origin, a semi-skilled or unskilled manual worker with a criminal, non-motoring record of violent, antisocial behaviour. In the main, his social characteristics are similar to violent criminal offenders and the research clearly demonstrates that a strong positive relationship exists between serious motoring offending and offending of a violent, anti-social nature. It is argued that the kind of person who has internalised lower class subcultural norms, who additionally lives by the values of the subculture of violence and who accepts violence as normal behaviour will carry over this behaviour to the driving situation and that 'accidents' for these people are not accidents but rather intended patterns of subcultural behaviour based on the subcultural values to which they subscribe. It is concluded that the subculture of violence thesis and the extension to it proposed by this research to include violence on the road, has been of some heuristic value in examining deviant driving behaviour in New Zealand society. It is further concluded that any future research into the subculture of violence thesis may well be encouraging for those proponents of the thesis. The research concludes with some implications of the findings.