Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop a driving behavior scale for professional drivers of heavy semi-trailer trucks in China, and study the causes of such driving behavior and its impact on traffic safety operation. Data was processed by IBM SPSS 25. In addition to principal component analysis, Promax rotation, Bartlett’s test, Cronbach’s alpha, correlation analysis and binary logistic regression were examined. A DBQ with 4 dimensions and 20 items, and a PDBQ with 1 dimension and 6 items were developed for professional drivers of heavy semi-trailer trucks in China. The KMO coefficients of PDBQ and DBQ were 0.822 and 0.852, respectively, and the significant level of Bartlett’s popularity test was p < 0.0001. The accident prediction model showed that the variables related to traffic accidents were negligence/lapses and driving time of heavy semi-trailer truck drivers. 1–5 a.m. was found to be the most dangerous period for drivers of medium and heavy semi-trailer trucks, during which accidents were most likely to happen. As negligence/lapses increased by one unit, the probability of traffic accidents increased by 2.293 times.
Highlights
With the advantages of large volume and flexible transportation, heavy semi-trailer truck played an important role in highway transportation, and was integral to highway freight industry
The highway freight market was developing by virtue of heavy loading vehicles
The proportion of the death toll caused by heavy truck accidents to that caused by road traffic accidents in total was on the rise
Summary
With the advantages of large volume and flexible transportation, heavy semi-trailer truck played an important role in highway transportation, and was integral to highway freight industry. Heavy trucks were large in model structure and poor in dynamic performance due to their heavy loading and inflexibility, consuming more road space-time resources in driving. This made them easy to cause major and serious traffic accidents. Traffic accidents involving heavy semi-trailer trucks had brought huge losses to public safety and social economy. As the main participant in freight industry, professional drivers of heavy semi-trailer trucks were one of the key factors of traffic safety. In the investigation of traffic accidents involving long-distance trucks, it was found that
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