Illegal Street Racers’ Behavior: The Proposed Theory

Abstract

This paper reviews the nature of the illegal street racers’ behavior and theories underlying risky behavior of illegal street racers to understand factors that influence individual behavior to commit illegal street racing. Generally, there are several theories could be applied to study street racing behavior which include the choice theory, the trait theory, the psychodynamic theory, behavioral theory among others. The findings of the reviews concluded that the most suitable theory to study the behavior of the street racers are the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) developed by Ajzen (1985,1991). These theories suggested that reasoned action and planned behaviors are associated to individual attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavior control. This paper presents the process of how these theories could be used as the theoretical framework for studying the Malaysian illegal motorcycles street racers termed “Mat Rempit”.