An evaluation of the specific deterrent effects of vehicle impoundment on suspended, revoked, and unlicensed drivers in California

There have been a number of studies conducted during the past two decades that convincingly demonstrate that license suspension and revocation are some of the most effective countermeasures currently available for attenuating the traffic safety risk of problem drivers. At the same time, it is also known that most suspended/revoked (S/R) drivers violate their illegal driving status and continue to drive, accruing traffic convictions and becoming involved in crashes. In an attempt to strengthen license actions and to better control S/R and unlicensed drivers, California enacted two laws effective January 1995 which provide for the impoundment and forfeiture of vehicles driven by S/R and unlicensed drivers. The study described in this paper evaluates the impact of vehicle impoundment on the 1-year subsequent driving behavior of S/R and unlicensed drivers who experience this sanction. The results show that drivers with no prior convictions for driving while S/R or unlicensed whose vehicles were impounded have, relative to similar drivers whose vehicles were not impounded: 23.8% fewer driving while suspended/revoked or unlicensed convictions; 18.1% fewer traffic convictions; and 24.7% fewer crashes. The differences between the impound and no-impound groups are even larger when the driving records of repeat offenders (i.e. drivers with prior driving-while-S/R or unlicensed convictions) are examined. Repeat offenders whose vehicles are impounded have 34.2% fewer driving-while-S/R or unlicensed convictions, 22.3% fewer traffic convictions and 37.6% fewer crashes. These findings provide strong support for impounding vehicles driven by S/R and unlicensed drivers.     

Do accident-involved drivers exhibit riskier everyday driving behavior?

For more than forty years researchers have tried to relate traffic accident involvement to how an individual normally drives. Such efforts have not hitherto discovered clear effects. This study establishes statistically significant relations between prior involvement in accidents and an observed characteristic of every day driving. The observed driving characteristic is following headway in high flow freeway traffic, defined as the time interval between a vehicle and the preceding vehicle in the same lane. This headway is interpreted as a measure of driver risk. It is found that accident-involved drivers are more likely to follow with short headways (less than 1 s) than accident-free drivers. A similar effect is found in comparing drivers with and without traffic violations.     

The effect of traffic tickets on road traffic crashes

Road traffic crashes are globally a leading cause of death. The current study tests the effect of traffic tickets issued to drivers on subsequent crashes, using a unique dataset that overcomes some shortcomings of previous studies. The study takes advantage of a national longitudinal dataset at the individual level that merges Israeli census data with data on traffic tickets issued by the police and official data on involvement in road traffic crashes over seven years. The results show that the estimated probability of involvement in a subsequent fatal or severe crash was more than eleven times higher for drivers with six traffic tickets per year compared to those with one ticket per year, while controlling for various confounders. However, the majority of fatal and severe crashes involved the larger population of drivers who received up to one ticket on average per year. The current findings indicate that reducing traffic violations may contribute significantly to crash and injury reduction. In addition, mass random enforcement programs may be more effective in reducing fatal and severe crashes than targeting high-risk recidivist drivers.     

Aberrant driving behaviors: A study of drivers in Beijing

The addition of massive numbers of new drivers with varied driving experience to roads in China suggests it is important to understand the nature of aberrant driving behaviors for this new set of drivers. A paper-based and an Internet survey were administered. Factor analysis produced a five-factor structure for each survey. The distinction between violations and errors indicated in previous studies was confirmed. The violations included emotional violations, risky violations and self-willed violations, and the errors included inexperience errors and distraction errors. In contrast to previous work, age was not found to be a good predictor of violations though driving experience was. Contrary to expectations, non-automotive (bicycle) roadway experience or level of driving training failed to predict poor driving behavior. On-road experience is the key to risk for China's drivers. Good agreement between the paper-based and Internet surveys indicate online surveys to be a feasible way to conduct research of driving behavior at low cost.     

Young novice driver subtypes: Relationship to driving violations, errors and lapses

The present study aimed to identify, in a large Italian sample of young, novice drivers, specific subtypes of drivers on the basis of combinations of self-reported personality traits (i.e., driving anger, anxiety, angry hostility, excitement-seeking, altruism, normlessness and driving locus of control) and to evaluate their high-risk driving behaviors not only in terms of traffic rule violations and risk-taking behaviors, but also in terms of driving errors and lapses as measured by the Manchester Driver Behavior Questionnaire. Participants were 1008 high school students between the ages of 18 and 23 years, with valid driver's licenses. On the basis of a cluster analysis of the personality variables, three easily interpretable driver subgroups were identified (risky drivers, worried drivers and careful drivers) that differed on self-reported accident involvement, attitudes toward traffic safety and risk perception, as well as on driving violations, errors, and lapses. The inclusion of internal and external driving locus of control, variables not previously considered in similar cluster studies, provided a relevant contribution to the final cluster solution. Further, the use of the Driving Behavior Questionnaire permitted the differentiation between deliberate deviations from safe driving practices and mistakes due to misjudgments or lapses in attention. This distinction was critical for understanding the behavior of each of the three identified subgroups of drivers, and for planning interventions to promote safe driving.     

Using traffic conviction correlates to identify high accident-risk drivers

One of the primary missions of the California Department of Motor Vehicles is to protect the public from drivers who represent unacceptably high accident risks. Optimum fulfillment of this objective requires the development and implementation of strategies for identifying high-risk drivers. One such system in California is the department’s negligent operator point system. This system assigns points to moving violations and accidents and authorizes the department to take driver control actions against drivers who meet the prima facie definition of a negligent operator. The present study explored the viability of predicting accidents from equations constructed to predict convictions for the general driving population. Equations or models that better identify drivers at increased risk of future accident involvement would increase the number of accidents prevented through post license control actions. Although the results did not support prior findings that equations keyed to citations do as well as or better than equations keyed to accidents in predicting subsequent accident involvement, a canonical correlation approach considering subsequent accident and citation rates simultaneously produced a 14.9% improvement in the classification accuracy or “hit rate” for identifying accident-involved drivers.     

驾驶员风险驾驶行为及影响因素分析

为探究中国驾驶员风险驾驶行为产生的原因及其影响因素,利用修正的曼彻斯特DBQ问卷对349名中国驾驶员进行了问卷调查。经过探索性因素分析(EFA)得到了4因子结构模型,分别命名为认知错误、违规行为、无意失误和记忆力流失,并利用验证性因素分析(CFA)对该模型进行了验证。研究了性别与驾驶行为的关系,结果表明男性驾驶员更容易发生违规行为,而女性驾驶员发生无意失误行为的频率较男性驾驶员偏高。通过变量间的相关性分析,研究了驾驶员的统计学信息、4因子以及交通事故之间的关系,构建了基于Logistic回归的交通事故预测模型,研究表明违规行为和年龄是影响交通事故的重要参数。     

Profiling drunk driving recidivists in Denmark

Drunk drivers are a menace to themselves and to other road users, as drunk driving significantly increases the risk of involvement in road accidents and the probability of severe or fatal injuries. Although injuries and fatalities related to road accidents have decreased in recent decades, the prevalence of drunk driving among drivers killed in road accidents has remained stable, at around 25% or more during the past 10 years. Understanding drunk driving, and in particular, recidivism, is essential for designing effective countermeasures, and accordingly, the present study aims at identifying the differences between non-drunk drivers, drunk driving non-recidivists and drunk driving recidivists with respect to their demographic and socio-economic characteristics, road accident involvement and other traffic and non-traffic-related law violations. This study is based on register-data from Statistics Denmark and includes information from 2008 to 2012 for the entire population, aged 18 or older, of Denmark. The results from univariate and multivariate statistical analyses reveal a five year prevalence of 17% for drunk driving recidivism, and a significant relation between recidivism and the drunk drivers’ gender, age, income, education, receipt of an early retirement pension, household type, and residential area. Moreover, recidivists are found to have a higher involvement in alcohol-related road accidents, as well as other traffic and, in particular, non-traffic-related offences. These findings indicate that drunk driving recidivism is more likely to occur among persons who are in situations of socio-economic disadvantage and marginalisation. Thus, to increase their effectiveness, preventive measures aiming to reduce drunk driving should also address issues related to the general life situations of the drunk driving recidivists that contribute to an increased risk of drunk driving recidivism.     

Voluntary risk taking and skill deficits in young driver accidents in the UK

In absolute terms, young drivers have three to four times as many accidents per year as older drivers; and even allowing for their relative numbers in the population, their accident involvement is about 2.5 times higher than older drivers. A sample of 3437 accident reports was considered, including 1296 in detail, from midland police forces in the UK, involving drivers aged 17-25, and covering the years 1994-1996 inclusive. Four types of accident were identified as being of particular concern due to their high frequency: 'cross-flow'-turns; rear-end shunts; loss of control on bends; and accidents in darkness. (The term 'cross-flow' is used in relation to turns to denote an intersection accident where a driver is turning across the path of oncoming traffic, i.e., left turns in the US and continental Europe, but right turns in the UK and other countries where driving on the left side of the road is the norm.) An examination of driver risk taking behaviours as revealed in police interviews gave an insight into some of the motivational factors underlying young driver behaviour. Young driver accidents of all types are found to be frequently the result of 'risk taking' factors as opposed to 'skill deficit' factors. It had previously been thought that one of the main problems that young drivers have is in the area of specific skills needed in the driving task. However, it appears that a large percentage of their accidents are purely the result of two or three failures resulting from voluntary risk taking behaviour, rather than skill deficits per se. It is shown that specific groups of young drivers can even be considered as above average in driving skills, but simultaneously have a higher accident involvement due to their voluntary decisions to take risks.     

Annual mileage, driving violations, and accident involvement in relation to drivers' sex, age, and level of education.

The paper presents results of some analyses on a Dutch database that contains disaggregated data on both the traffic system input variables of the driver population (characteristics of drivers, including their annual mileage) and the output variables of the driver population in terms of habitual driving behaviour (operationalised in number of fines) and accident involvement. Accidents increased as annual mileage increased. A relationship between violations and accidents turned out to exist in different classes of annual mileage. Moreover, multivariate analyses showed that--corrected for annual mileage--male and female drivers do not differ in accident involvement; younger drivers have the highest rate of accidents and level of education is not related to accident involvement.     

Crash risk and aberrant driving behaviors among bus drivers: The role of personality and attitudes towards traffic safety

Several studies have shown that personality traits and attitudes toward traffic safety predict aberrant driving behaviors and crash involvement. However, this process has not been adequately investigated in professional drivers, such as bus drivers. The present study used a personality–attitudes model to assess whether personality traits predicted aberrant self-reported driving behaviors (driving violations, lapses, and errors) both directly and indirectly, through the effects of attitudes towards traffic safety in a large sample of bus drivers. Additionally, the relationship between aberrant self-reported driving behaviors and crash risk was also assessed.     

Modeling safe and unsafe driving behaviour

A sample of 743 Dutch drivers was queried about driving-related errors and violations, and about the frequency of their accident involvement over the past 3 years. In addition, the following risky behaviours and characteristics related to driving were measured through self-report: strategic decisions made about driving before starting a trip, attitudes related to committing violations, psychological precursors of unsafe driving (such as being tired or stressed when driving), and physical precursors of unsafe driving (suffering physical or psychological handicaps when driving). The results show that several scales have acceptable reliability coefficients, though several others are in need of improvement. Path analysis showed that an acceptable structural model could be developed to describe all empirical relationships. Considerable parts of the variance in the violations scores and the psychological precursors scores could be explained by the other model variables. In terms of predictive power, "unsafe" attitudes, physical precursors, and psychological precursors had the most impact, each explaining up to 9% of the variance in violations scores, errors scores, and/or psychological precursors scores. The way these results can be utilized in future accident prevention programs and in driver training programs are indicated, as are their implications for future research.     

Time and distance to first accident and driving patterns of young drivers with pay-as-you-drive insurance

We conducted a study of approximately 16,000 drivers under the age of 30 that had purchased a pay-as-you-drive insurance policy, where their risk of being involved in a crash was analyzed from vehicle tracking data using a global positioning system. The comparison of novice vs. experienced young drivers shows that vehicle usage differs significantly between these groups and that the time to the first crash is shorter for those drivers with less experience. Driving at night and a higher proportion of speed limit violations reduces the time to the first crash for both novice and experienced young drivers, while urban driving reduces the distance traveled to the first crash for both groups. Gender differences are also observed in relation to the influence of driving patterns on the risk of accident. Nighttime driving reduces the time to the first accident in the case of women, but not for men. The risk of an accident increases with excessive speed, but the effect of speed is significantly higher for men than it is for women among the more experienced drivers.     

The Driver Behaviour Questionnaire in Arab Gulf countries: Qatar and United Arab Emirates

Manchester Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) is one of the most widely used instruments for measuring self-reported driving style and investigating the relationship between driving behaviour and accident involvement. In spite of the fact that Arab Gulf countries have a higher road accident fatality rate compared to European countries and USA, the DBQ has not been used in Arab countries so far. The aim of the present study was to investigate the factor structure of the DBQ, then to examine the relationships between the factors of the DBQ and accident involvement, and finally to compare DBQ scores between the two gulf countries: Qatar and United Arab Emirates (UAE). In this study, 1110 Qatari (263 females and 847 males) and 1286 UAE drivers (294 females and 992 males) filled a survey questionnaire including the DBQ and background information. The results showed that UAE drivers scored higher on almost all DBQ items than Qatari drivers. Surprisingly, only very small differences between men and women on the DBQ item scores were found in UAE. Factor analysis resulted in four factors, which were named as errors, pushing-speeding violations, lapses, and aggression-speeding violations. However, there were a number of differences in the factor structure of the DBQ in UAE and Qatar when compared to the theoretical four-factor structure of the DBQ. Reliabilities of some subscales were also questionably lower than in the original British data. Logistic regression analyses showed that errors, lapses, and aggression-speeding violations predicted accident involvement in Qatar but not in UAE after controlling the effect of the demographic variables (age, sex, and annual mileage).     

Discrepancy analysis of driving performance of taxi drivers and non-professional drivers for red-light running violation and crash avoidance at intersections

Due to comfort, convenience, and flexibility, taxis have become increasingly more prevalent in China, especially in large cities. However, many violations and road crashes that occurred frequently were related to taxi drivers. This study aimed to investigate differences in driving performance between taxi drivers and non-professional drivers from the perspectives of red-light running violation and potential crash involvement based on a driving simulation experiment. Two typical scenarios were established in a driving simulator, which includes the red-light running violation scenario and the crash avoidance scenario. There were 49 participants, including 23 taxi drivers (14 males and 9 females) and 26 non-professional drivers (13 males and 13 females) recruited for this experiment. The driving simulation experiment results indicated that non-professional drivers paid more attention to red-light running violations in comparison to taxi drivers who had a higher probability of red-light running violation. Furthermore, it was found that taxi drivers were more inclined to turn the steering wheel in an attempt to avoid a potential collision and non-professional drivers had more abrupt deceleration behaviors when facing a potential crash. Moreover, the experiment results showed that taxi drivers had a smaller crash rate compared to non-professional drivers and had a better performance in terms of crash avoidance at the intersection.     

Approaches of truck drivers and non-truck drivers toward reckless on-road behavior

The purpose of the study was to compare the reported approaches of truck drivers to those of non-truck drivers toward reckless on-road behaviors. One hundred and sixty-seven adult males, including 70 non-truck drivers, completed the questionnaires voluntarily. The truck drivers were employees of a concrete manufacturing company working at various company plants throughout Israel. Seventy were professional mixer truckers and 27 were tip-truckers. The participants completed the Reckless Driving Self-Report Scale based on Taubman Ben-Ari et al. [Taubman Ben-Ari, O., Florian, V., Mikulincer, M., 1999. The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: a test of terror management mechanisms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76, 35-45], adapted for truck drivers for this study. It was expected that non-professional, as compared to professional (truck) drivers, would be more permissive regarding reckless driving, since driving risks are less prominent in their daily driving experience. An ANOVA performed on mean reckless-driving scores yielded significant results. The post hoc Schéffe test indicated significantly higher reckless-driving scores for automobile drivers as compared to both mixer-truck driver scores and tip-truck driver scores. In addition, the reckless-driving scores for mixer-truck drivers were significantly higher than the tip-truck driver scores. We discuss various explanations for the findings and consider possible implications for training strategies in organizations as well as for media campaigns focused on mutual safe road use of truck drivers and private vehicle drivers.     

The evaluation of effects on driver behavior and accidents of concentrated general enforcement on interurban roads in Israel

The study deals with the evaluation of the effects of a new deployment of the National Traffic Police in Israel--a concentrated general enforcement on 700 km of interurban roads, which contain 60% of all rural accidents and about half of the severe accident locations. The enforcement project began in April 1997 and lasted for 1 year, aiming at a 10% reduction of severe accidents on those roads. The evaluation study consisted of three main parts: (a) monitoring of everyday police operations on the project roads; (b) periodic evaluation of the project's influence on drivers' behavior and attitudes; and (c) the evaluation of accident changes within the project area, at the end of the project year. Speed measurements, performed before the police project launch, demonstrated that, depending on road type, up to 85% of drivers violated the rural road speed limits. Two rounds of field observations, before and during the project, took place at 32 sites throughout the project area and comprised eight behavior types: turning performance; signaling while turning; compliance with 'stop' and 'yield' signs; safety belt use by drivers and front-seat passengers, at the intersections; 'keeping to the right' on dual carriageway roads; and 'not-crossing of the white separating line' at single carriageway roads. A comparison revealed a general reduction in violation rates of most behaviors, during-the-project, except for compliance with 'stop' signs and signaling. Concurrently, two rounds of driver surveys were performed which examined the project's influence on the drivers' attitudes towards the police enforcement effectiveness and risk connected with traffic rule violations. An improvement was identified in perceived general level of police activity, during the project, whereas a lower or similar risk of apprehension was attributed by drivers to most specific violations of the traffic rules. Three groups of indices of police activity were estimated monthly during the study: inputs; outputs; and efficiency indices, which characterized the police presence on the project roads, the citations produced and the usage rates of the vehicle fleet and the enforcement tools. Analyzing these indices, two periods in the project performance were determined, and three criteria were proposed to subdivide the project roads into two groups, according to the level of enforcement intensity. Both periods and enforcement levels, as well as geographic zone, were accounted for in the analysis of accident trends on the project roads. For the accident analysis, a statistical model combining the odds ratio and longitudinal methods, was developed and applied to the severe accident counts, all injury accidents and severe casualties. A statistically significant reduction in severe accidents and severe casualties, as opposed to the comparison group, was found on the highly enforced roads in the center of the country. At the same time, since the police project began, an increase in accidents was observed on most interurban roads, including the northern parts of the project area. However, it was noted that in four of the five project road groups the mean value of the odds ratio was much less than one. Thus, although the enforcement project did not attain its full purpose, it seemed to be a deterrent factor for the increasing accident trend that appeared that year on the interurban roads. The findings pointed out that the National Traffic Police did not exhaust its potential in the project's performance and needs more flexible enforcement and deployment tactics.     

Self-report measures of distractibility as correlates of simulated driving performance

The present study investigated the relationship between self-reported measures pertaining to attention difficulties and simulated driving performance while distracted. Thirty-six licensed drivers participated in a simulator driving task while engaged in a cell phone conversation. The participants completed questionnaires assessing their tendency toward boredom, cognitive failures, and behaviors associated with attention deficit and hyperactivity. Scores on these measures were significantly correlated with various driving outcomes (e.g., speed, lane maintenance, reaction time). Significant relationships were also found between one aspect of boredom proneness (i.e., inability to generate interest or concentrate) and self-reports of past driving behavior (moving violations). The current study may aid in the understanding of how individual differences in driver distractibility may contribute to unsafe driving behaviors and accident involvement. Additionally, such measures may assist in the identification of individuals at risk for committing driving errors due to being easily distracted. The benefits and limitations of conducting and interpreting simulation research are discussed.     

Personality and behavioral predictors of traffic accidents: testing a contextual mediated model

A contextual mediated model was proposed to distinguish the distal (i.e. personality factors) and proximal (i.e. aberrant driving behaviors) factors in predicting traffic accident involvement. Turkish professional drivers (N=295) answered a questionnaire including various measures of personality factors, driver behaviors, and accident history. Results of the latent variable analysis with LISREL indicated that latent variables in the distal context (i.e. psychological symptoms, sensation seeking, and aggression) predicted at least one of the proximal elements (i.e. aberrant behaviors, dysfunctional drinking, and preferred speed) with relatively high path coefficients. While aberrant driver behaviors yielded a direct effect on accident involvement, psychological symptoms yielded an indirect effect mediated by driver behaviors. Further analyses revealed that personality factors had an impact on road accidents via their effects on actual driving-related behaviors although the path coefficients in predicting accidents were relatively weaker than those predicting risky driving behaviors and habits. Results were discussed considering the implications for classifying the accident correlates in a contextual framework and binominal-poisson distribution of self-reported accidents.     

Age differences in male drivers' perception of accident risk: the role of perceived driving ability

Young (18-25) and older (35-50) male drivers were compared in their perception of driving risk and confidence in driving ability. Both groups provided responses a questionnaire on accident risk and driving ability and further generated subjective ratings of risk to a series of videotaped sequences depicting various elements of driving behavior. Although young drivers' estimates of accident involvement in the next year were higher than those of older drivers, young drivers gave lower ratings of accident risk for specific driving situations which demanded fast driving reflexes or substantial vehicle-handling skills. Young drivers rated their own risk of an accident and driving abilities as being the same as for older drivers. However, they saw their peers as being significantly higher at risk and having poorer abilities than themselves. Young drivers were more confident in their driving abilities than the older drivers. Evidence is provided to suggest that perceived risk and self-perceived driving abilities are interrelated. Further, the data from young drivers showed two disturbing characteristics: first, a notable dissociation between perceived and actual ability and, second, a tendency to view themselves as immune from the effects of higher levels of risk, which they are prepared to ascribe to their peers but not to themselves.