Lecture 25- Measuring Driver Behaviour

Question 1

What are two broad ways of measuring driver behaviour?

Answer 1

Direct= actually drive and see what happens

Indirect= self-report

Question 2

What are naturalistic driving studies? What are the benefits and disadvantages to it?

Answer 2

• Install a data logger in car and track behaviour continuously
• Allows comparisons under different driving conditions and is the most like real life in reflections what it is like to drive.
• It is observational with no direct manipulation so can’t really infer causality only associations. Also clearly there are individual differences that make it hard to generalize findings across people.
• Another issue is that if its’ looking at lane positioning (as opposed to something more simple to measure like speed): GPS aren’t accurate enough to tell where the car is at all times in relation to the road markings. Especially considering code markings are not always draw in the exact same way/ generic position
• Another problem is the studies are enormous and cost a lot of time and money. There is so much data to analyze which requires a large research team.

Question 3

What is instrumented vehicles as a way to measure driver behaviour? What are the benefits/ disadvantages of it?

Answer 3

• Real driving but on a consistent predetermined route
• Still real driving (although slightly less so than naturalistic cause pre determined route) and more cost effective
• A concern would be ethics because obviously you want to measure in situations that might be dangerous. Possible solution is to employ a back up driver that can step in if something goes wrong (dual control car) but this loses realism.
• Also, often participant pool constraints to the area you live in (WEIRD or EIRD bias)
• Finally, an unfamiliar car or road may not accurately reflect what/ how individuals would drive in the real world

Question 4

What are driving simulator studies like as a method for measuring driver behaviour?

Answer 4

• Control over everything
• Safe way to explore dangerous situations (physical harm doesn’t occur)
• Doesn’t accurately reflect the real world: less perception of dangers so changes people’s behaviour from what it would be in real life.
• Simulation sickness is also an issue especially as often with driving studies you want to test populations of people that are vulnerable i.e. elderly never use computers so will likely find a sim quite jarring.

Question 5

What are self- report measures like as a means to measure driving behaviour?

Answer 5

• Self- reports are usually through Likert scales/ rating
• Yes they aren’t perfect: forgetting, don’t tell truth. But some people are okay with admitting illegal behaviour cause morally don’t think it’s wrong so shouldn’t complete discount it for these reasons
• Benefit of it is often have access to greater range of participants and they are cheaper than a lot of the more experimental research.
• What’s important is that questionnaires are well designed and measurement scales are sensitive enough to produce meaningful variation. Do they measure what we actually want?

Question 6

How reliable are self report measures on driving according to the current research?

Answer 6

• Minimal evidence that people try and present themselves in an overly positive way when it comes to driving research
• However, reporting mileage, violations, crashes are not consistent over time (not reliable) as people simply struggle to remember specifics (i.e. don’t think in mileage/ how much distances they travel)

Question 7

What is the basic question behind the idea of personality and driving?

Answer 7

Does the way we live normally effect how we approach driving

Question 8

What four ‘categories’ were identified in the driving behaviour questionnaire by Parker et al. ? What is the difference between these categories?

Answer 8

• Lapses= just forgetting things when driving but not nothing much coming from it
• Errors= unintentional but more serious than lapses (real consequence)
• Ordinary violations= deliberate disregard for rules
• Aggressive violations (newest category)= still deliberate but more like open displays of aggressiveness to other drivers as opposed to simply not respecting the rules

Question 9

How do the four categories of the DBQ relate to personality traits?

Answer 9

• Errors: negative affectivity, disinhibition, irresponsibility, impulsivity, negative attentional control, not conscientious
• Lapses: negative affectivity, disinhibition, irresponsibility, perseveration, attentional control, conscientiousness
• Ordinary violations: hostility, risk taking, thrill seeking, impulsivity, disinhibition, not conscientious, negative affectivity
• Aggressive violations: hostility, antagonism, trait anger, negative affectivity

Question 10

Which one of the ocean 5 dimensions is the best at predicting driver behaviour?

Answer 10

Conscientiousness

Question 11

What does the relationship between driving and personality have an impact on?

Answer 11

• Driver training (only works for people that are conscientious?)
• Offender rehabilitation and deterrence programs for driving offenders (if hostile drivers are the ones more likely to offend we need to consider this personality type in our approach to rehabilitation/ punishment)
• Acceptance of new tech

Question 12

In the driving anger study what the 6 annoyances that drivers rated and what were these then grouped into?

Answer 12

• Slow driving
• Traffic obstructions

Grouped into progress impediment

-Illegal driving

Was in own category of being put at risk

• Discourtesy
• Hostile gestures

Grouped into inconsiderate driving

Finally, Police presence

Question 13

Is road range it’s own thing?

Answer 13

Yes, because people who are very calm in their normal everyday lives still experience anger/ anxiety on the roads

Question 14

What is found in cross- cultural comparisons of road rage?

Answer 14

USA= at and above mid-point for all measurements

China= Overall a lot less anger and less variation across subscales

Turkey= quite high in anger across the board but in a different
Way to Americans. Most angered by discourtesy, illegal driving, hostile
Gestures. Only a little angry by progress impediment and police

Question 15

What was found in cross modal comparisons of motorcyclists and cars in relation to road rage?

Answer 15

• Riders higher in trait sensation seeking but not angry
• Overall levels of anger didn’t differ between riders and drivers
• Drivers angered by discourtesy
• Riders more angered by things that put them in danger (have less protection)

Question 16

What is the rider anger scale?

Answer 16

From most anger to less anger

• Perceived risk
• Forced riding style
• Perceived hostility
• Slow riding

Question 17

What is the cyclist anger scale of who they get the most versus least angry with?

Answer 17

• Cars
• Pedestrians
• Cyclists
• Police

Question 18

How does individual differences in cyclists effect their anger levels? What does this reflect?

Answer 18

• Less confident cyclists report more anger

- Suggests perceived risk is the underlying mechanism

Question 19

Why should care about road rage?

Answer 19

• Road rage is very common
• Crashes are not the only issue if we care about people’s well being which as psychologists we do
• Simply reducing the amount of people on roads may not be the answer as physical yes we can make this happen but it’s hard to change people’s minds. If people fear for their personal safety they won’t change their travel mode.
• We need to understand what is going on in people’s heads + the reasons for their decisions