Speeding is one of the major factors associated with road accidents, and is linked to many other risky driving behaviors, especially in young males. Although young males are at higher risk, only a small proportion actually engages in these behaviors or has accidents. Driving simulation has been proposed as a means to identify those at high-risk for speeding because of its high ecological validity, though it has rarely been used for this purpose. The use of questionnaires, a more common method for the prediction of risky driving behaviors, has been criticized because of its susceptibility to response bias. This study aimed to evaluate (1) whether road speed choice is predicted by speed choice on a simulator, and (2) whether simulation provides a significantly better prediction of road speed choice, relative to a questionnaire of risky driving behavior.

Road site speed (RSS) of a group of 19-year-old male drivers was measured and compared with: (i) simulator mean speed (SMS) and simulator site speed (SSS); and (ii) a questionnaire that measures risky driving behaviors: Analyse des Comportements Routiers [Road Behavior Analysis] (RBA) [1]. It was hypothesized that all of these variables would be positively correlated, the strongest relationship being between measures collected on the road and on the simulator. If the first hypothesis was supported, a further analysis would evaluate how much additional variance in speed on the road could be explained by the addition of speed measures on the simulator to scores from the questionnaire.

RSS was correlated with SMS (r₁₈ = 0.66, p < 0.001), SSS (r₁₈ = 0.68, p < 0.001) and the RBA (r₁₈ = 0.44, p < 0.05). Hierarchical regression, with RBA and SSS entered, revealed that SSS explained 36% (p < 0.01) of the variance of speed on the road, over and above the 20% (p < 0.05) already explained by the RBA.

Thus, simulation is a viable tool to predict speed choice on the road of high-risk young male drivers. It may provide additional predictive power compared with questionnaires. The feasibility of simulation for this purpose needs to be balanced against the lower cost of questionnaires and the limited availability of simulators.

References

1. 1. Bergeron, J.; Joly, P. (1997). Questionnaire ACR (version E) [Road Behavior Analysis E version]. Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2002 , 4^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 27-30 August 2002, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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