This article focuses, in an interdisciplinary perspective, the studies about traffic accidents, in a national and international scale. It starts by analysing the great increase in production and consumption of motor vehicules worldwide and the social transformations which this fact produced. Particular attention is given to the degradation of the urban environment and the enormous social costs represented by traffic accidents. It follows with an epidemiological view on the victims of traffic accidents. The relationship between personality and traffic accidents deserved special attencion, mainly in what it relates to the consumption of alcool and other chemical drugs, and other law breaking behaviour. The article concludes by emphasising the need of the State to implemment specif consistent public policies, in order to control the problem.
Automobile Driving; Motor Vehicles; Traffic Accidents; Epidemiology