学术英语原文3单元

Do Traffic Tickets Save Lives? Pity the poor traffic cop. He's the last guy you want to see in your rear-view mirror when you're speeding down the highway. Why isn't he out looking for murderers instead of nailing drivers for minor infractions of the law? Well, according to a major research project by scientists in Canada and California, that cop just might be saving your life. Or the life of someone else. The researchers have found that a traffic ticket reduces a driver's chance of being involved in a fatal accident by a whopping 35 percent, at least for a few weeks. The effect doesn't last long, however. Within three to four months, the lead foot is back on the pedal and the risk of killing yourself or someone else is back up to where it was before that cop stared you in the eye and wrote out that expensive citation. The bottom line, according to the research, published in the June 28 issue of The Lancet, is that traffic tickets save lives. Maybe thousands of lives, every year. Yet traffic laws are enforced sporadically, almost as if by whim, partly because people just don't like traffic cops, and there are lots of other things for the government to spend money on than enforcing highway safety laws. The Grim Statistics That attitude needs to be changed, according to Donald A. Redelmeier of the University of Toronto and Robert J. Tibshirani of Stanford University. Both men are medical researchers, and this isn't the first time they've taken a hard look at highway safety. Their 1998 study caused a stir when they linked cell phone usage to traffic accidents. Now they're back, saying traffic tickets are good for our health. They were prodded into this project by some very grim statistics. Each year, more than a million persons die in traffic accidents worldwide. If that many people died of SARS in a year, the public response would probably border on hysteria, but we have come to accept traffic fatalities as a way of life. In addition, another 25 million people around the world are permanently disabled by traffic accidents, and many of them — as well as the fatalities — are children. Taking It Easy After a Ticket? When Redelmeier and Tibshirani and fellow researcher Leonard Evans set out to see if traffic tickets really do any good, they found an enormous resource in the Canadian province of Ontario. The full driving record of every licensed driver there was made available to them, warts and all, giving the researchers a huge data base of more than 10 million licensed drivers, 8,975 of whom were involved in a fatal accident during the 11-year period covered by the research, from 1988 through 1998. "We looked at the month prior to a fatal accident, and the number of traffic convictions, and then the same month in the year before," says Tibshirani, a statistician. "What we found was that there were fewer tickets in the month before a fatal accident than there were a year before, and that suggests there's a protective effect of having a ticket." In other words, when the number of citations went down, the number of fatal accidents went up the following month, and when the number of tickets went up, the number of fatal accidents dropped the following month. The analysis shows that fatal accidents declined by 35 percent because of citations. Apparently, people just drove more cautiously following a traffic citation, but that only lasted a maximum of four months, the researchers say. After that brief respite, it was back to business as usual for most motorists. Citations’ Effects Consistent The scientists also turned up some surprising results."Most of the crashes did not involve alcohol and were not at an intersection," they report in their research paper. Most occurred during the summer months when the streets were dry (65 percent) rather than wet (18 percent) or covered with snow (17 percent). They also found that the "relative risk reduction associated with traffic convictions was remarkably consistent among subgroups of licensed drivers," so the same results apply to women as well as men, regardless of age, prior driving record, and other personal data. Men, however, were involved in far more fatal accidents than women (73 percent to 27 percent) and the most accident-prone age was between 30 and 50. Alcohol was detected in only 7 percent of the accidents. The researchers also addressed the commonly held belief that traffic citations cause more accidents than they prevent because so many people are killed during police chases. They found that only 24 deaths could be linked to writing citations during the 11-year period. That included 17 suspects, five bystanders and two police officers. "The typical suspect who died was a 26-year-old man pursued by police after fleeing a spot check for alcohol or a speeding violation," they report. The two police officers were killed in separate events when they were hit by a car while writing a ticket for another motorist. Who Really Pays? The researchers admit there are a few gaps in their findings. The statistics do not include Ontario drivers who may have been involved in a fatal accident somewhere outside that province. Nor can they say that every traffic ticket leads to a reduction in accidents. But the statistics suggest a correlation between the number of citations and the number of fatalities. They also point out that the innocent are often made to pay the price for careless drivers. "Unlike other common diseases, the victims are often young and need significant subsequent care for decades. Most crashes are unintended, unexpected, and could have been prevented by a small difference in driver behavior." So the next time you see that cop in your rear-view mirror, give him, or her, a broad smile. Yeah, right. 哎,这可怜的交警。他是你在高速公路上疾驰时最不愿意在后视镜里看见的人。他为什么不去抓那些杀人犯,却在这儿为了一点儿芝麻大的交通违规对司机们穷追不舍? 然而,根据加拿大和加利福尼亚科学家们的一项重要研究,那位警察也许恰恰是在救你的命,或者救別的什么人的命。 研究者们发现一张交通罚单能让司机至少在几周内遭遇重大车祸的概率降低35%。似是这个作用不会持续很长。三四个月后,那只脚又会回到油门儿上去,置自己或別人于死地的危险率又和警察瞪着你开出巨额罚单前一样高了。 根据6月28日发在《柳叶刀》上的研究,最根本的一点就是交通罚单能救命,它很可能每年能救成千上万条命。然而交通法规只是零星地被实施,就像心血来潮似的,部分原因是人们不喜欢罚单,而且除了实施髙速公路安全法,政府部门还有很多其他地方要花钱。 多伦多大学的热德尔美尔和斯坦福大学的提波施拉尼认为这种态度需要改变。他们俩都是医学研究者,这已不是他们第一次盯着高速公路安全问题了。他们俩1998年的研究引起了轰动,当时他们认为打手机与交通事故有关联。现在他们又来了,说交通罚单对我们的健康有好处。 他们之所以参与这个项目是受到一些残酷无情的统计数据的驱使。每年,全世界有100多万人死于交通事故。如果一年内那么多人死于非典的话,大家很可能会恐惧得发疯了,然而我们对交通亊故死亡率却习以为常了。 另外,还有2 500万人因交通事故永远残废了,而且他们当中(包括死去的)很多是孩子。 当热德尔美尔、提波施拉尼和他们的共同研究人员伦纳德?伊凡斯研究交通罚单是否真能起到好作用时,他们在加拿大的安大略省发现了数量巨大的司机资料。他们在那儿能看到每个有驾照的人的全部记录,这样他们就有了一个良莠俱存的超过一千万个持照司机的巨大数据库。其中8 975个司机在此项研究覆盖的1988-1998共11年中曾出过重大交通事故。 统计学家提波施拉尼说:“我们看了一下出重大事故前一个月的交通罚单数和前一年同一个月的罚单数,发现出重大事故前一个月的罚单要比前一年同一个月的罚单少,这说明罚单有保护作用。” 换言之,当罚单数下降时,重大事故率在接下来这个月就会上升;而当罚单数上升时,重大事故率在接下来这个月就会下降。分析表明罚单能使重大事故率下降35%。 显然,人们在拿到交通罚单后开车会更谨慎,但这种谨慎最长只会持续4个月。对多数司机来说,经过这短暂的歇息,一切又都恢复到从前了。 科学家们还出示了一些令人吃惊的研究结果。 “多数撞车不是因为酒后驾车,也不是发生在十字路口,”他们在研究中这样报道。多数事故发生在夏季,当时的道路干燥(65%)而不湿滑(18%),也没有雪覆盖(17%)。 他们还发现“在有驾照的那组司机中拿到罚单后的事故减少率的持续性是显著的",因此同样的结论适用于妇女和男人,而与年龄因素、以前的驾驶记录和其他个人资料无关。 但是,男人要比女人更容易出严重交通亊故(73%比27%),而且最容易出事故的年龄是在30-50岁之间。酒后驾车只占事故的7%。 研究者们还澄清了一种普遍的想法:交通罚单引起的交通事故比防止的多,因为很多人是在警察追他们时丧生的。他们发现在过去的11年中只有24起死亡事故和罚单有关,这包括17个被追的司机、5个路人和2位警察。 “最典型的一例是一个26岁的男子,因想逃避酒精和超速违规的现场检查而被警察穷追不舍,”他们报告说。有2位警察死于与这互不相关的事件中,当时他们正在给另一个摩托车驾驶员开罚单。 研究者们承认在他们的研究中有一些漏洞。统计数字不包括有可能在省外某地出严重交通事故的安大略省司机。他们也不能说每张交通罚单都能降低事故率。但是数据显示交通罚 单的数量和死亡率之间呈相关性。 他们还指出为粗心大意的司机付出代价的经常是那些无辜受害者。 “和其他常见病不一样,受害人通常很年轻,需要以后几十年连续不断的照顾。大多数事故是无意的,意料之外的,只要司机在驾驶上稍有不同就能避免。” 因此下次你要是在后视镜里看见那位警察,一定要对他/她热情微笑。