Discounting delayed monetary rewards and near accident experiences during driving among occupational drivers

Abstract

Impulsivity has been linked to traffic safety problems in many prior studies. However, it is not clear whether impulsivity, defined by the rate of discounting delayed monetary rewards, relates to drivers’ problematic behavior. We investigated the relationship between the discounting of hypothetical monetary outcomes and near accident (i.e. hiyari-hatto) experiences during driving among occupational drivers. A total of 189 occupational drivers (160 men) completed the delay discounting questionnaire and hiyari-hatto experiences scale. In completing the delay discounting questionnaire, participants were asked to perform the two delay-discounting tasks, in which they chose between ¥100,000 or ¥5,000 available after some delay (from 1 month to 5 years) or a lesser amount of money available immediately. Subjective equivalence points were obtained from participants’ choices on delay discounting questionnaires, from which the areas under the curve (AUC; Myerson et al., 2001) were calculated. The results indicated that the rate of discounting (AUC) was negatively correlated to near accident experiences. We discuss the need for future research on impulsivity, delay discounting, and traffic safety.