Laws of accident causation.

This paper suggests that the influence of a number of important risk factors on road accidents can be described in terms of a few highly general statistical regularities that determine the shape of the relationship between the risk factors and accident occurrence. The statistical regularities are referred to as "laws of accident causation". The following "laws" are proposed: Instances of all these laws, as well as a discussion of to how the laws can be tested empirically, are given. It is hoped that proposing a few basic mechanisms that can summarise the impact of a number of risk factors will stimulate research that may lead to a more general theory of accident causation.