Young novice driver subtypes: Relationship to driving violations, errors and lapses
Introduction
It has been well established by studies and accident databases from various countries that young novice drivers are more frequently involved in traffic accidents than drivers in other age groups (OECD, 2006, Subramanian, 2006, WHO, 2004). This trend is noticed also in Italy, where car accidents are the leading cause of death for young people aged 18–24 years. In fact, in 2006, about 15% of the deaths and 18% of the injures occurring in traffic accidents concerned people in this age group (ISTAT, 2007).
A variety of factors and explanatory models have been proposed to explain the overrepresentation of novice drivers in accidents (e.g., Deery, 1999, Gregersen and Bjurulf, 1996, OECD, 2006). Insufficient skills and a lack of driving experience have frequently been regarded as the main causes of accidents in this age group (Fisher and Pollatsek, 2007, Underwood, 2007). In addition, it has been shown that adolescent drivers tend to underestimate the probability of the risks caused by traffic situations (Brown and Groeger, 1988, Deery, 1999), to perceive themselves as invulnerable to negative outcomes in accidents (Millstein, 1993), to overestimate their own driving skills (Gregersen, 1996, Moe, 1986) and to use unsafe strategies to manage dangerous situations in driving (e.g. Lucidi et al., 2006). Other studies have suggested that adolescents tend to have a riskier driving style (e.g., driving too fast, following too closely, and overtaking more dangerously) than older drivers due to a general propensity toward deliberately engaging in high-risk behaviors (Beirness and Simpson, 1988, Bina et al., 2006, Hatfield and Fernandes, 2008, Jessor, 1987). In fact, in this age group, risky driving style has been found to co-occur with other high-risk behaviors such as drinking and drug use (Hutchens et al., 2008, Vassallo et al., 2008).
While young drivers as a group are more likely to drive dangerously and be involved in accidents, certainly not all young drivers demonstrate these high-risk tendencies. In order to identify those subgroups of drivers at highest risk, two approaches have been followed. Some studies have focused their attention on the separate and distinctive contribution of specific personality characteristics in order to understand individual differences in risky driving style. Findings from these studies have demonstrated that personality factors such as sensation seeking (Jonah, 1997, Zuckerman, 2007), driving anger (Deffenbacher et al., 2004, Deffenbacher, 2008), social deviance (West and Hall, 1997), hostility (Schwebel et al., 2006), impulsiveness (Dahlen et al., 2005), aggression, low altruism, anxiety and normlessness (Ulleberg and Rundmo, 2003) and locus of control (Gidron et al., 2003, Montag and Comrey, 1987, Özkan and Lajunen, 2005) are frequently associated with risky driving and crash involvement.
According to the OECD report (2006), a more limited number of studies, instead, have tried to identify specific subtypes of young drivers on the basis of combinations of certain personality characteristics by the use of cluster analysis. Analyzing the behavior of these driver subtypes, these studies identified one or more high-risk driver groups (Deery and Fildes, 1999, Donovan et al., 1988, Ulleberg, 2001). Ulleberg (2001), for example, identified six subtypes of young drivers, with two of them being defined as high-risk groups. The first group was primarily composed of men who reported low scores in altruism and anxiety, and high scores in sensation seeking, irresponsibility and driving-related aggression. They also reported the most risky driving style, had risk-taking attitudes and perceived the risk of being involved in a traffic accident as relatively low. Moreover, despite having the highest accident involvement of all the groups, members of this group reported a high degree of confidence in their skills as drivers. The second high-risk group reported high scores in sensation seeking, aggression, anxiety and driving anger, a profile which Ulleberg considered indicative of a low level of emotional adjustment. Similar to the first high-risk group, this group demonstrated relatively high accident involvement, risky driving behaviors and risk-taking attitudes, but, they did not rate their driving skills as particularly good and they perceived the risk of being involved in an accident as high. This group was also composed of more women than men.
In these studies, driver subgroups were identified as high risk based exclusively on violation behaviors such as accident involvement, traffic rule violations (e.g., driving above the speed limit) and deliberate risk-taking behavior at the wheel (e.g., driving too close to the car in front). Recently, several studies have analyzed additional kinds of driving behaviors that could be linked to accident risk. In particular, these studies have used the Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ) (Reason et al., 1990) which is based on a theoretical taxonomy that distinguishes between errors and violations in driving (Lajunen et al., 2004, Özkan et al., 2006a, Parker et al., 1995). Errors are defined as the failure of planned actions to achieve their intended consequences (e.g., brake too quickly on a slippery road) and violations as conscious deviations from rules or safe practices (e.g., drive even though you realize you may be over the legal blood–alcohol limit) (Reason et al., 1990). Moreover, an additional factor named “slips and lapses” has also been identified that focuses on attention and memory failures (e.g., attempt to drive away from traffic lights in third gear). Errors and violations are considered to have different psychological origins: errors are the result of information-processing problems, whereas violations have a large motivational component; as such, they require different modes of remediation (Parker et al., 1995, Reason et al., 1990). Studies applying Reason et al.’s taxonomy have analyzed, for different driver age groups and nationalities, the frequencies of violations, errors and lapses, as well as the links between these and accident involvement. To the best of our knowledge, these driving behaviors (i.e., errors, violations and lapses) have not been linked to specific driver subtypes, as derived from cluster analysis of various personality variables.
The main aim of this study was to identify, in a large Italian sample of young novice drivers, specific subtypes of drivers on the basis of combinations of personality traits via cluster analysis and to evaluate their driving behavior not only in terms of traffic rule violations and risk-taking behaviors, but also in terms of their driving errors and lapses, according to Reason et al.’s taxonomy (DBQ).
In order to identify driver subgroups, the present investigation assessed the same grouping variables (i.e., excitement-seeking, angry hostility, anxiety, altruism, normlessness and driving anger) used by Ulleberg (2001), but also included a measure of driving locus of control (Montag and Comrey, 1987) which was not considered in previous cluster studies. Locus of control is a personality construct that reflects the degree to which a person generally perceives events to be under their own control (internal locus of control) or under the control of powerful others or other outside forces (external locus of control) (Rotter, 1966). Montag and Comrey (1987) have developed a scale of internal and external locus of control specific to driving behavior. Internal driving locus of control has been found to be negatively related to accident involvement and positively related to alertness, attention, and cautious driving, whereas external driving locus of control has been positively associated with aggression and involvement in fatal accidents (Montag and Comrey, 1987, Lajunen and Summala, 1995). The inclusion of driving locus of control was anticipated to assist in the identification of specific driver subtypes.
Section snippets
Sample
One thousand and eight Italian high school students between the ages of 18 and 23 years (mean age = 18.33 ± .68), with valid driver's licenses, completed a questionnaire survey in their classrooms during school hours. Students required about 45 min to complete the survey. Participants were fairly evenly distributed across genders (56.8% male) and had their driver's licenses for a mean of 7.40 ± 6.83 months. Over a quarter of the participants reported (28.77%) driving daily, and 18.20% reported driving
The cluster solution
While there are no formal rules for determining the numbers of clusters present, one accepted procedure is to study the increment of the merger coefficients (Fabbris, 1997). At the point of marked flattening of the graph, the subsequent mergers of cluster portray no new information. An inspection of the graph suggested that three clusters were present in the data.
The cluster profiles
The standardized cluster means of the variables generated by the K-means analysis on the three-cluster solution are presented in Fig.
Discussion
The cluster analysis identified three separate subgroups of young novice drivers in a sample of Italian adolescents: risky drivers, worried drivers and careful drivers. These subgroups differed both on individual personality characteristics previously observed to be related to risky driving and accident involvement and on specific behavioral, attitude and risk perception measures related to driving. The highest risk cluster, Cluster A (“risky drivers”), was mainly composed of male drivers
Conclusion
Even though the present study has some limitations, including the reliance on self-report data, a moderate predictive power of the subtypes respect to some outcome measures, the use of a convenience sample of Italian high school students not necessarily representative of all young novice drivers in Italy, it does offer the first study of this type with an Italian sample. Further, while our results identified a smaller number of clusters with respect to previous studies, the personality traits
Acknowledgements
The study was supported by the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Italian Road Police and funded by the ANIA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
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