Driven To Kill: Vehicles as Weapons

The charge: first-degree murder. The murder weapon: a 1987 Ford Escort. A car as a murder weapon? In Driven to Kill, J. Peter Rothe unflinchingly examines the use of vehicles in cases of assault, abduction, rape, gang warfare, terrorism, suicide, and murder. What separates an everyday driver from a motorized menace? Read and find out. Yes, Rothe offers a trove of unprecedented research for sociologists, criminologists, policy makers, police, as well as public health, injury prevention, and traffic safety professionals, but his accessible style speaks to our fascination with car culture and true crime stories.

In Driven to Kill, J. Peter Rothe examines the use of vehicles in cases of assault, abduction, rape, gang warfare, terrorism, suicide, and murder. How can a car be such an enabling force for the gamut of society's most heinous crimes? Rothe offers a trove of unprecedented research for sociologists, criminologists, policy makers, police, as well as public health, injury prevention, and traffic safety professionals, but his accessible style speaks to our fascination with car culture and true crime stories.

A widely published scholar, Peter Rothe has a rich background in analysing the social behaviour engaged in risk, safety, and injury. He has directed major qualitative research studies in traffic safety, education, trucking, criminology, health, injury control, counselling, First Nations, and gerontology. Dr. Rothe is presently a Senior Research Associate and Associate Professor with the Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research at the University of Alberta.