There is a discussion on this topic in Cialdini’s Influence (which is a great read).
It is very difficult to tell the difference between an accidental traffic accident and a suicidal traffic accident (i.e. purposefully close your eyes and turn the wheel into oncoming traffic). The reason people may commit suicide this way is to avoid the stigma of suicide, avoid hurting their loved ones, and to allow their beneficiaries to receive their life insurance benefits. However some statistical analysis can give us a clue:
There is a trend that when a suicide is committed and covered in the news, there is often a rash of “copy-cat” suicides immediately following. These copy-cats are generally similar to the original in gender, age and style (public v. private, self-only v. murder-suicide, etc) .
The rate of traffic accident deaths ALSO greatly increases following media coverage of a suicide. This suggests that many of these traffic accidents may actually be suicides, but it is possible that there is some other factor (i.e. perhaps hearing about suicides makes people sad, which makes them prone to bad driving).
However, further study reveals that similar to other copy-cat suicides, these traffic accidents also match the original in gender, age, and style. For example, if the original was a murder-suicide, then the copy-cat accidents will take out bystanders (such as by driving into oncoming traffic), but if the original was suicide-only, then the copy-cat accidents will only kill themselves (such as by driving into a pole). This data strongly suggests that these post-suicide “accidents” are actually copy-cat suicides
Therefore, it is much more dangerous to drive or fly after a highly-publicized murder-suicide, fyi.
Note- I do not have my copy in front of me right now, so this is all from memory. But I read it relatively recently, and although I do not recall the exact percentages, am rather certain that this was a confident conclusion.
There is a discussion on this topic in Cialdini’s Influence (which is a great read).
It is very difficult to tell the difference between an accidental traffic accident and a suicidal traffic accident (i.e. purposefully close your eyes and turn the wheel into oncoming traffic). The reason people may commit suicide this way is to avoid the stigma of suicide, avoid hurting their loved ones, and to allow their beneficiaries to receive their life insurance benefits. However some statistical analysis can give us a clue:
There is a trend that when a suicide is committed and covered in the news, there is often a rash of “copy-cat” suicides immediately following. These copy-cats are generally similar to the original in gender, age and style (public v. private, self-only v. murder-suicide, etc) .
The rate of traffic accident deaths ALSO greatly increases following media coverage of a suicide. This suggests that many of these traffic accidents may actually be suicides, but it is possible that there is some other factor (i.e. perhaps hearing about suicides makes people sad, which makes them prone to bad driving).
However, further study reveals that similar to other copy-cat suicides, these traffic accidents also match the original in gender, age, and style. For example, if the original was a murder-suicide, then the copy-cat accidents will take out bystanders (such as by driving into oncoming traffic), but if the original was suicide-only, then the copy-cat accidents will only kill themselves (such as by driving into a pole). This data strongly suggests that these post-suicide “accidents” are actually copy-cat suicides
Therefore, it is much more dangerous to drive or fly after a highly-publicized murder-suicide, fyi.
Note- I do not have my copy in front of me right now, so this is all from memory. But I read it relatively recently, and although I do not recall the exact percentages, am rather certain that this was a confident conclusion.