Citation

Wilson WT, Wilson P. Accid. Anal. Prev. 1984; 16(5-6): 351-370.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1984, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

Two raters assessed the driving of 15 female and 15 male drivers over a 61 K mixed urban, rural and motorway route on 87 variables. In addition, drivers were asked to asses their own driving on the 87 variables. Good correlations were reported between raters and differences noted between self and observer ratings. Drivers tended to assess their own driving to be worse than it was rated by the observers. Factor analysis and subsequent examination of the factors resulted in the development of a three level typology of driving. The three levels comprised simple vehicle manipulation, vehicle manipulation in relation to the road and aspects of driving concerned with interaction with other road users, i.e., the social components of driving. The social components level, as well as being probably the most interesting and important for studying driving, accounted for over half the observed variance among drivers. Terms used to describe the social component factors were: unaware, sloppy, incautious, risky, inattentive, poor preparation, poor reading of road, intolerant, competitive, inconsiderate or unaware of pedestrians, protagonistic toward cylists and inertia. The factors showed reasonable replicability across the two raters and appeared to provide a reasonable basis upon which to extend the development of a typology of the social aspects of driving.