• Ralston Fernandes, R F Soames Job, and Julie Hatfield.
• NSW Injury Risk Management Research Centre, Building G2, Western Campus Drive, Western Campus, University of New South Wales, NSW 2052, Australia. r.fernandes@unsw.edu.au
• J Safety Res. 2007 Jan 1; 38 (1): 59-70.

AbstractIn road safety, it may be debated whether all risky behaviors are sufficiently similar to be explained by similar factors. The often assumed generalizability of the factors that influence risky driving behaviors has been inadequately tested. Study 1 (N=116) examined the role of demographic, personality and attitudinal factors in the prediction of a range of risky driving behaviors, for young drivers. Results illustrated that different driving behaviors were predicted by different factors (e.g., speeding was predicted by authority--rebellion, while drink driving was predicted by sensation seeking and optimism bias). Study 2 (N=127) examined the generalizability of these results to the general driving population. Study 1 results did not generalize. Predictive factors remained behavior-specific, but different predictor-behavior relationships were observed in the community sample. Overall, results suggest that future research and practice should focus on a multi-factor framework for specific risky driving behaviors, rather than assuming generalizability across behaviors and driving populations.

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