Abstract
The way people behave in traffic is not always optimal from the road safety perspective: drivers exceed speed limits, misjudge speeds or distances, tailgate other road users or fail to perceive them. Such behaviors are commonly investigated using self-report-based latent variable models, and conceptualized as reflections of violation- and error-proneness. However, attributing dangerous behavior to stable properties of individuals may not be the optimal way of improving traffic safety, whereas investigating direct relationships between traffic behaviors offers a fruitful way forward. Network models of driver behavior and background factors influencing behavior were constructed using a large UK sample of novice drivers. The models show how individual violations, such as speeding, are related to and may contribute to individual errors such as tailgating and braking to avoid an accident. In addition, a network model of the background factors and driver behaviors was constructed. Finally, a model predicting crashes based on prior behavior was built and tested in separate datasets. This contribution helps to bridge a gap between experimental/theoretical studies and self-report-based studies in traffic research: the former have recognized the importance of focusing on relationships between individual driver behaviors, while network analysis offers a way to do so for self-report studies.
Highlights
It has become something of a truism in human factors research that people contribute to road crashes by either deliberately violating rules or by making unintended errors
The analysis showed that drivers who were more likely than others to exceed speed limits within residential areas were more likely to tailgate the vehicle in front; further, the tailgating drivers were more likely than others to need to brake or swerve to avoid an accident
Previous psychometric work has been based on the latent variable view, according to which individual errors and violations function as reflections of underlying psychological properties, error-proneness and violation-proneness
Summary
It has become something of a truism in human factors research that people contribute to road crashes by either deliberately violating rules or by making unintended errors. The idea is echoed in statements such as: “Errors and violations result from different psychological processes (Reason et al, 1990) and should be treated differently” (Mesken, Lajunen & Summala, 2002) “Since errors and violations result from different psychological processes, they should be treated differently,” (Reason et al, 1990; Lajunen, Parker & Summala, 2004) and “As each type of behavior has a distinct psychological underpinning (Reason et al, 1990), different interventions are required to reduce their frequency and associated crash risk” (Stephens & Fitzharris, 2016) This idea is referred to as the latent variable view of violations and errors
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