Motor vehicle crashes: A little-known risk to returning veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/motor-vehicle-crashes-a-little-known-risk-to-returning-veterans-of-iraq-and-afghanistan/2013/05/05/41da2f6c-a3b1-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines



Steven Acheson, an Iraq War veteran, at his apartment in Platteville, Wis., May 3, 2013.

Motor vehicle crashes: A little-known risk to returning veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan
By David Brown, Published: May 5

For men and women who have fought in the country’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, death behind the wheel is becoming another lethal aftereffect of combat.

After they leave military service, veterans of the two wars have a 75 percent higher rate of fatal motor vehicle accidents than do civilians. Troops still in uniform have a higher risk of crashing their cars in the months immediately after returning from deployment than in the months immediately before. People who have had multiple tours in combat zones are at highest risk for traffic accidents.

~snip~

That’s probably not the whole story, however. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suffered by thousands of veterans, increases aggressive driving. Drunken driving and thrill-seeking also are more common after combat, according to a few studies and the testimony of many veterans.

If further research supports the observations, motor vehicle crashes will join suicide and interpersonal violence as a fatal, if indirect, consequence of the war on terrorism.