Driving experience, personality, and skill and safety-motive dimensions in driversʹ self-assessments

This study was aimed at measuring skill and safety-motive dimensions in driversʹ self-assessments of their driving abilities and at investigating correlations among three driving inventories and six general personality measures. The questionnaires were completed by 113 students with a driverʹs licence. The orthogonal model with the skill and safety-motive factors explained 35% of the variance in the questionnaire based on the work of Spolander (Driversʹ Assessment of Their Own Driving Ability, 1983) and Hatakka, Keskinen, Katila and Laapotti (International Conference on Traffic Safety, 1991). Multiple regression analysis showed driving experience to be a significant predictor of safety and skill-oriented driving, so that with driving experience drivers assess themselves as more fluent in handling the car, but lower in safety aspects of driving. The safety-motive scale had only weak correlations with driving-specific or personality measures except the Lie-scale of the EPQ, which suggests that ‘safe driving’ expressed in questionnaires is safety jargon soon forgotten after driving school with driving experience, possibly together with the corresponding safety behavior, rather than a permanent response tendency. The skill scale correlated strongly with scales expressing an emotional attitude to driving and with a sense of coherence. Driving aggression and dislike of driving DBI scales correlated with neuroticism, Type-A behavior, self-esteem, sense of coherence, and locus of control, whereas the MDIE scales correlated only with Type-A behavior and neuroticism.