It is widely believed that immigrants are unsafe drivers due to unfamiliarity with Canadian road laws, signs, and layouts. Dr. Donald Redelmeier in U of T’s Department of Health Policy, Management & Evaluation of disagrees.
“Ontario has some of the safest roads … in North America and has some of the greatest ethnic diversity of anywhere in North America, so we wondered whether that combination was just a coincidence or actually part of a larger pattern contrary to prevailing thought,” explained Redelmeier.
He and his colleges decided to try to disprove this popular stereotype; they conducted a study and published their findings in the journal, Accident Analysis and Prevention.
Redelmeier explained that the study was conducted by first identifying “every adult who had immigrated to Ontario over the past decade” — about one million people.
“These individuals are tracked forward in time for about eight years from their day of arrival, and then matched to long-term residents of Ontario who have the same age, gender, home location, and social economic status.”
Redelmeier said that the main finding of the study was that “the rate of crashes was about 40–50 per cent lower amongst the recent immigrants compared to the long term residents.
“If long term residents would have had the same risks as recent immigrants, the differences would have saved over 2000 surgical operations and over 30 000 days in hospital,” he continued.
When asked about his most surprising finding, Redelmeier responded, “We observed that the greatest decrease in crash risk was during the initial years following immigration but that the differences still persisted even beyond the fifth and sixth year.”
“The differences in risk also extended in those with highest levels of crash severity as well as the highest level of baseline economic income.”
When asked to explain what he believed to be the cause of the discrepancy, Redelmeier responded that it is “complacency” among long-term residents.
“Experienced motorists develop long-term over-confidence after years of uneventful driving [that] breeds an air of familiarity and so the drivers do not follow basic safety practices such as wearing a seat belt, obeying the speed limits [etc.],” he said.
Redelmeier offered a second theory: “If you are a recent immigrant to Ontario, the last thing you want is to get in trouble with the authorities. So, on account of that, you don’t get sloppy about speed limits or coming to a full stop at stop signs or cutting corners in all sorts of ways.”
Redelmeier feels that “this type of study raises awareness and helps set the record straight.”
“If people have mistaken beliefs about walking under a ladder or black cats or breaking a mirror, there’s no serious harm done. But the problem about road transportation … is that mistaken beliefs in that setting can cost you your life.”
