R4: Psychology of Driving

Question 0

Risk Homoeostasis theory

Answer 0

• individuals adjust their behaviors to maintain a certain preferred level of subjective risk.
• benefit of safer cars balanced by riskier driving thus we shouldn’t bother with safer systems but with ppls preferred level of risk
• different kinds of risk re street lighting vs airbags.

Question 1

Brorsson (1993) estimated that the risk of an accident driving on friday and sat night was how many times greater than average risk level observed for all driver at all times

Answer 1

40

Question 2

Drivers perception of risk

Answer 2

• drivers get little feedback about the risks of driving. Many risky behaviors can not lead to an accident. Accident can not be their fault
• accurate risk perception is psychologically implausible. Cassette vs recall. 80% of accidents forgotten in recall.
• decision making is irrational and prone to bias. Availability heuristics planes vs cars. Ppls estimates influence by nature of outcome.
• self-serving bias and self-situation attributions
• risky drivers don’t compensate for risk. I.e. those more likely to speed are more likely to not wear seatbelts. Are they happier to accept higher risk or misperceive risk? Hold risk mitigating beliefs “I can drive safely at speed” or “only really high speeds are dangerous”

Question 3

Groeger and Brown (1989) risk depends on the hazard and individual. How? (3)

Answer 3

• if drivers fail to detect risk
• underestimate it’s danger
• over-estimate their ability to deal with it

Question 4

Distorted Speed-Utility Functions: Summala’s zero risk theory

Answer 4

• risk control is based on maintaining safety margins around themselves
• suggests that accidents happen because subjective risk thresholds are too high and do not accurately reflect objective risk. Drivers fail to take into account variance (ppl braking suddenly) or drive too fast
• way to reduce accidents is by reducing variance and speed via traffic engineering and speed limits

Question 5

Individual differences in skill

Answer 5

• those who rate themselves as better controllers of vehicles drove faster than those who rated themselves highly on hazard perception

Question 6

Different types of riskiness

James Reasons Taxonomy

Answer 6

• errors
• slips and lapses
• violations
• women make more errors but men commit more violations
• violations decline with age, men of all ages commit more violations than women
• errors do not decrease with age and slips and lapses appear to increase
• propensity to violate, rather than tendency to make errors that is associated with great risk of accidents

Question 7

Personality dimensions and driving behaviour

Answer 7

• account for some of the variability
• sensation seeking, normlessness and anger sig associated (in that order)
• locus of control not, but makes sense because some accidents aren’t within ones control