* 13 pct rise in the 6 months after deployment-USAA
* Crashes more prevalent for Army than other branches
* Adds to body of research on effects of war
By Ben Berkowitz
BOSTON, April 24 (Reuters) – U.S. military personnel have 13
percent more car accidents in which they are at fault in the six
months after returning from overseas duty than in the six months
prior, a USAA study revealed on Tuesday.
USAA, a major insurer catering specifically to the armed
forces and their families, based its study on 171,000
deployments by 158,000 of its members over a three-year period
ending in February 2010, when combat was still raging in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
In many cases, USAA found, soldiers took the driving style
that kept them alive on the streets of Baghdad and Kabul and
applied it to the suburban roads at home.
The results were most dramatic for returning members of the
Army and Marines, whose accident rates rose 23 percent and 12.5
percent, respectively. (Rates were up 3 percent for the Navy and
2 percent for the Air Force).
Not surprisingly, given the experience many soldiers had
with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other roadside
obstacles in combat zones, USAA found “objects in the road” to
be the most cited of the 13 accident causes it studied.
The insurer also found a direct correlation between the
number of deployments and the rate of accidents — those
deployed three or more times had 36 percent more incidents,
those deployed twice had 27 percent more and those deployed only
once had 12 percent more accidents. A 2009 military study found
that, since 2001, deployments for reservists had averaged from 8
to 14 months in duration.
There was also correlation by age (soldiers under 22 were
involved in more wrecks than those over 29) and by rank (the
more senior a soldier the lower the number of accidents).
“USAA has shared its research with each military branch’s
safety center commanders. USAA has also shared the study with
academics and traffic safety experts and has taken steps to make
USAA members aware of the behind-the-wheel risks for returning
troops,” the company, which had 8.8 million members as of the
end of 2011, said in the report.
The Army’s Office of Public Affairs declined to comment on
the results of the study, saying it was the company’s research
project and not the government’s.
The USAA survey adds to the growing body of data on the
psychological and physical effects of deployment to war zones.
The U.S. Army said in January that violent sex crimes
committed by active-duty soldiers have almost doubled over the
last five years, due in part to the trauma of war. In March,
Army researchers said one in five soldiers returning from
Afghanistan or Iraq after a concussion develop chronic
headaches.
(Reporting By Ben Berkowitz; editing by Gunna Dickson)
