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Abstract

The automobile provides unprecedented personal mobility. The costs of this convenience, however, are traffic crashes and the deaths and injuries caused by these crashes. In the United States, for example, there were 6,394,000 police-reported traffic crashes, resulting in non-fatal injury to 3,189,000 people and fatal injury to 41,821 people, in the year 2000. In fact, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for people aged 4 to 33 years.

For decades, traffic safety professionals have worked to reduce the frequency of motor vehicle crashes and the severity of resulting injury without compromising personal mobility. While this problem has been approached from several perspectives, such as designing safer roads and developing occupant crash protection devices for cars, perhaps the most important viewpoint comes from behavioral scientists. Regardless of the safety features present in cars or on the roads on which they travel, cars are operated by people whose behaviors are influenced by a multitude of psychological factors. Therefore, an important component of the traffic safety problem is understanding, predicting, and modifying the behaviors of drivers.

Because of its clear influence on crashes, much research has focused on risky driving behavior. Estimates suggest that risky driving behavior causes or contributes to at least 40% of crashes. Risky driving behaviors are those actions that increase, above some threshold, the objective likelihood of a crash or the severity of injury should a crash occur. As such, a driver may not consider his or her action to be a risky one even though it increases his or her chances of being in a crash or becoming severely injured in a crash. This definition of risky driving behavior assumes a threshold from which to assess the increase in risk or crash severity. This objective threshold is set by societal standards. In the case of speeding, for example, the threshold may be the speed limit, the speed of traffic flow, or the speed that is safe for the current road or weather conditions. Thus, drunk driving, speeding, running red lights, talking on a mobile phone, and lack of safety belt use are all examples of risky driving behaviors.

Outline

Factors Related to Risky Driving Behavior
Theories of Risky Driving Behavior
Countermeasures for Reducing Risky Driving Behaviors
Conclusion

1. Factors Related To Risky Driving Behavior

Certain groups of people seem to engage in risky driving more often than others. Reviewed here are four of the most common demographic and personality factors associated with risky driving.

1.1. Age

Observational and self-reported studies of driver behavior show that young people, more frequently than others, speed, travel with shorter headways, run traffic lights, use hand-held mobile phones, and fail to use safety belts. Drinking and driving is also common among young drivers, peaking between 21 and 35 years of age. These empirical studies mirror U.S. crash statistics that show that the number of motor vehicle crashes per licensed driver is highest for young drivers and declines with age, suggesting that the frequency of risky driving decreases with age.

1.2. Gender

It is well established that men, more often than women, drive after consuming alcohol, tailgate, speed, and fail to use safety belts. Interestingly, however, use of hand-held mobile phones while driving is more common among women than men, although data on the contribution of mobile phone use to crash involvement have not yet been routinely or accurately collected. Crashes involving alcohol, speeding, and lack of safety belt use are more common for men than women. Collectively, these data show that risky driving behavior, in general, is more common among men than women.

1.3. Sensation Seeking

A large body of work has documented the fact that certain people, referred to as sensation seekers, have a psychological need for a higher level of arousal than others, leading to negative traffic safety consequences. Sensation seekers engage in new, complicated, or emotionally intense activities, such as taking risks, because of the resulting increased arousal. Thus, a sensation seeker might engage in risky driving behavior simply to experience a situation in which physiological arousal will be elevated. Sensation seeking can be measured with a test, the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS), in which behaviors related to sensation seeking are self-reported. Several studies have shown that men score higher on the total SSS than women. Studies have also documented that SSS scores tend to increase with age up to about 19 years and then decline gradually through the life span. SSS scores also correlate significantly with frequency of motor vehicle crashes, traffic citations, and many observed and self-reported risky driving behaviors such as drinking and driving, speeding, and lack of safety belt use. Thus, there appears to be a link between risky driving behaviors and the biological need to seek arousal.

1.4. Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

There is some evidence that people diagnosed with ADHD may engage in risky driving behavior more often than others. Although few studies have investigated the role of ADHD in risky driving behavior, those that have reported that people with ADHD were more likely than control subjects to speed, disregard traffic control devices, drive without a license, have multiple crashes, and have multiple moving and nonmoving violations on their record. They were also more likely to have records of failure to appear in court and failure to pay fines, suggesting that people with ADHD tend to not follow through on the consequence of their violations. Because of methodological weaknesses of these studies, these results should be considered as preliminary. In addition, the relationship between risky driving behavior and successfully treated ADHD is unknown.

2. Theories Of Risky Driving Behavior

The last two decades have seen a profusion of theories on risky driving behavior, with no single one emerging as clearly superior. Collectively, however, these theories show various perspectives on how risk is conceptualized and its influence on driving. In addition, there are many commonalities among the theories that can help practitioners develop countermeasures for risky driving behaviors. The following sections briefly describe a sample of theories chosen to illustrate the breadth of thinking about risky driving behavior.

2.1. Zero Risk

The theory of zero risk assumes that driving behaviors result from motives, a primary one being the need to be mobile. As people drive, they experience subjectively risky situations, which over time they learn to avoid. In addition, as drivers gain experience, previously threatening situations that cannot be avoided begin to be perceived as less risky the more they encounter these situations without adverse consequences. The theory posits that people both learn to avoid risk and adapt to risky situations they encounter by a reduction in perceived risk, to the point of experiencing zero risk while driving. Risky driving behaviors, therefore, occur either because of inexperience or because of inappropriate amount of perceived risk for certain behaviors.

2.2. Risk Homeostasis

The theory of risk homeostasis maintains that people in a population have a preferred level of risk for a given activity. Rather than attempting to minimize risk while driving, people change their driving to reach the preferred level of risk. If the perceived risk of crash or citation is reduced, through roadway improvements or reductions in police presence, for example, drivers will simply increase their risky driving behaviors to compensate.

2.3. Utility Maximization

Theories of utility maximization posit that people choose driving behaviors based upon the outcome of a cost–benefit analysis, in which the cost is the perceived risk associated with certain driving behaviors. People engage in the behavior that maximizes their benefit, or utility, at the present time. Therefore, risky driving behaviors could arise from (1) assigning a low cost to the risky outcome, such as a crash, (2) perceiving a low risk for the behavior, or (3) believing that the benefits of the risky behaviors, such as saving time, outweigh the costs of the behavior.

2.4. Problem Behavior

The theory of problem behavior posits that all risky behaviors of adolescents and young adults, not just driving, are interrelated. The theory suggests that risky behaviors result from the combination of influences from three general components of an individual’s life: the psychological, social, and behavioral characteristics of the individual; the social environment; and the specific situation for the risky behavior. Each of these components has influences that make risky behavior more likely and less likely. These components interact and result in a tendency to engage in or not engage in risky behaviors. An important aspect of this theory is that behavior is motivational in nature; individuals may wish to engage in risky behaviors because they fulfill certain developmental needs, such as the need for peer approval. According to the theory, risky driving behavior results from both a motivation to engage in the behavior and a lack of inhibiting influences in the personal, social, or situational contexts to prevent the behavior.

2.5. Decision Making

Decision making theories conceptualize risky driving behaviors as resulting from a decision-making process in which risk is just one of several factors that may be considered. Therefore, the cognitive abilities of people, such as the speed at which they can process information, their memory capacity, and their general knowledge of the world, influence the selection of a given behavior. Various components of the decision, including the perceived risk, are combined to determine a subjective worth for the behavior among the set of behaviors available for a given situation. In these theories, risky driving behaviors can occur for the following reasons: (1) the risky driving behavior is selected over a less-risky behavior because it affords the person greater perceived benefit, or (2) the person, relative to others, is lacking cognitive skills or abilities for good decision making.

3. Countermeasures For Reducing Risky Driving Behaviors

In general, traffic safety countermeasures are not based on theory. However, designing psychology-based countermeasures that are effective in reducing the incidence of risky driving behavior is of great interest to traffic safety professionals. These countermeasures fall into three general classes: legislation/enforcement, licensing, and educational programs.

3.1. Legislation/Enforcement

Most traffic safety legislation is designed to prevent risky driving behavior by making it illegal to engage in these behaviors. We are all familiar with the fact that is it is illegal to drive over the speed limit, fail to stop at a stop sign, or not use a safety belt. This legislation, however, cannot be effective without enforcement. Legislation and enforcement countermeasures work on the principle of using punishment, or the threat of punishment, to reduce the likelihood of risky driving behaviors. The effectiveness of such programs has been shown in studies of drinking and driving, safety belt use, bicycle helmet use, and motorcycle helmet use. Although not commonly used, positive reinforcement has also been shown to be effective in reducing risky driving behavior. At least one study has shown the effectiveness of a variable reinforcement schedule in increasing safety belt use. In this study, police randomly pulled over drivers and rewarded them with prizes for wearing safety belts. Legislation coupled with enforcement is the most effective way to combat risky driving behavior.

3.2. Licensing

Countermeasures based on driver licensing are designed to legally restrict driving privileges until the driver meets certain criteria. Because of the high crash rate and high incidence of risky driving among young people, for example, many states have implemented a graduated licensing system. With graduated licensing, young drivers gradually gain skills, experience, and knowledge over a period of time under controlled, less risky conditions. Generally, there are three phases to graduated licensing. In the first phase, the young driver can operate a vehicle only under adult supervision. In the second phase, the young person can drive without an adult present, but his or her unsupervised driving is subject to restrictions, such as daytime driving only. In the third phase, the driver is given full driving privileges. Usually, these programs incorporate motivation for safe driving behavior by requiring the driver to be citation and/or crash-free for a period of time before graduating to the next phase. These programs also occasionally include educational components in which the driver attends and passes a class and/or demonstrates driving proficiency via a driving test. In summary, graduated licensing is designed to reduce risky driving among young people by rewarding safe driving behaviors and giving young drivers the opportunity to gain experience, acquire knowledge, and mature under conditions in which risky driving behavior is less likely. Evidence suggests that graduated licensing does reduce young driver crashes by as much as 25%, probably by reducing the incidence of risky driving among young people.

Suspended licensing is also used as a sanction following a conviction for certain driving violations, usually drunk driving. The removal of a person’s driving privileges is intended to both separate the person from his or her vehicle so that the undesirable driving behaviors cannot occur for some period of time, and to punish the person by taking away a privilege. This sanction has been found to be modestly effective for reducing the incidence of drunk driving, both during the sanction period and after.

3.3. Educational Programs

Educational countermeasures attempt to reduce the incidence of risky driving behaviors and crashes by presenting drivers with information relevant to traffic safety. The topics of these programs vary widely. Probably the most familiar program is the driver education course that is required in most jurisdictions for beginning drivers. The effectiveness of these programs has been extensively researched and the unfortunate conclusion is that these programs do not reduce crashes or risky driving; they do, however, teach people the rules of the road and how to operate a car. Similar findings are reported for motorcycle training programs. Other programs have attempted to teach young drivers advanced skills, such as controlling a vehicle during a skid. It has been found that when compared to a control group, young drivers completing the course actually had more crashes, although the difference was not statistically meaningful. Educational programs have attempted to teach people about the negative consequences of risky driving. The most common of these programs are victim impact panels, in which a convicted drunk driver is required to listen to statements from the family of the victim impacted by that driver’s behavior. Again, evaluations of these programs have shown that they do not reduce drunk driving behavior or crashes. As a final example, another common countermeasure involves public information and education about the presence and enforcement of a particular traffic safety law. These programs are designed to inform or remind the public about specific traffic safety legislation, such as a mandatory safety belt law, and tell the public that police are making a special effort to enforce the law, that is, to create an increase in the perceived threat of enforcement. These programs have been found to be effective, when coupled with actual enforcement, in increasing safety belt use, decreasing drunk driving, and decreasing aggressive driving.

The disappointing conclusion from these examples is that, to date, few educational programs positively impact risky driving behaviors, except those coupled with legislation and enforcement. One should not, however, draw the conclusion that educational programs cannot be effective, but rather that more research is needed in order to develop effective programs. As discussed earlier, there is no unifying or even leading theory of risky driving behavior. Lacking such theory, program development is forced to proceed in an ad hoc fashion. Another challenge is developing programs that use cognitively appropriate language for the target group. As recently recognized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), traffic safety programs targeted toward young people may not accommodate their cognitive abilities. Consequently, NHTSA has begun a program to apply the principles of cognitive development in the construction of young driver programs. Finally, it should be noted that measurement of the effectiveness of an educational program has several inherent difficulties. The typical outcome measures are either infrequent (crashes), requiring several years of follow-up data, or difficult to measure on the road (risky driving behaviors). Furthermore, many programs may not reach the proper audience or may suffer from a self-selection bias, compromising the validity of evaluations.

4. Conclusion

Advances in our understanding and prevention of risky driving behaviors lie ahead. Many of these advances will undoubtedly result from the application of psychological theory and principles. Further research is needed to develop and test theories of risky driving behaviors and continued efforts are needed to integrate these theories into effective countermeasures. Success in these areas will greatly enhance the prevention of the death and injury toll caused by motor vehicle crashes.

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