Abstract
Culture has a significant impact on driving behaviour and can play an important role in driving safety. The adaptation of traffic‐related psychological instruments, developed elsewhere in new national contexts, should consider the cultural context. This paper validates the multidimensional driving style inventory (MDSI) with two cultural samples consisting of 215 Chinese drivers and 240 British drivers. A factor analysis of the driving style yielded evidence that both datasets present some variations from the original version of the instruments in the factorial structure. The analysis of the UK sample is comparable to the previous MDSI by indicating six driving styles, namely, anxious, risky and dissociative, high‐velocity and angry, patient, careful, and distress‐reduction. The analysis of the Chinese participants’ dataset showed its factorial structure with 40 items of the 44 original items divided over six styles. A new dimension, namely, an inattentive driving style, appeared in the Chinese sample. These differences raise the need to validate and adapt such instruments to consider cultural specificities. Implications were also derived for driver and road safety enhancement solutions through driver behaviour applications.
Highlights
Road traffic accidents are a major health and economic problem throughout the world, and research within traffic psychology has mainly focused on the human factors that are evident in car accidents, such as attitudes, driving behaviours, and sociodemographics (e.g., [1, 2])
We examined differences in these factor scores through sociodemographic and drivinghistory variables, employing multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVA). e univariate effects of the variables that emerged as significantly associated with factor scores were further examined through univariate analyses of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson’s correlations
Factor 4 consists of six items addressing a well-adjusted and adaptive driving style, including concentration, patience, and compliance with road traffic regulations. is factor explains 2.08% of the variance (Cronbach’s alpha: .705) and was labelled the patient and careful driving style. ree items of this factor were included in the patient driving style: two were in the careful driving style and one in the dissociative driving style of the original multidimensional driving style inventory (MDSI)
Summary
Road traffic accidents are a major health and economic problem throughout the world, and research within traffic psychology has mainly focused on the human factors that are evident in car accidents, such as attitudes, driving behaviours, and sociodemographics (e.g., [1, 2]). Driving styles have been shown to be an important human factor related to traffic accidents [1]. Elander et al [3] defined driving style as the method drivers choose to employ when they are driving, or how they drive habitually while facing various traffic conditions, including their choice of driving speed, the distance from vehicles ahead, and their habitual level of general attentiveness and assertiveness. It has been shown that drivers with certain driving styles, such as being reckless and careless, tend to exhibit unsafe driving behaviours [4]. Erefore, an investigation of driving styles can help us to better understand the causes of certain kinds of driving behaviour from a more general perspective. It can help to provide important support for the classification of drivers, such that drivers with different driving styles could be monitored and alerted in advanced driver-assistance systems to reduce risky driving behaviours
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
