The results from this study have highlighted that there are gender differences among young drivers, attitude changes among adolescents (regardless of driving status) and links between pre-drivers‟ attitudes, road behaviour and their future self-reported driving behaviour. Correlations also found significant associations between „Novelty‟ and „Intensity‟ in sensation seeking and engagement in driving „Highway Code Violations‟. These results show that there is a great need for national pre-driver interventions to be implemented in schools and local communities that aim to reduce adolescents‟ high-risk pre-driving attitudes, road behaviour and ultimately their engagement in future high-risk driving behaviour. These interventions need to target the creation of safe attitudes and intentions towards driving and general road safety so that the frequency and occurrence of high-risk road behaviours and driving behaviours are prevented or reduced.
The null was rejected for the following hypotheses in this study:
1) Pre-drivers‟ high-risk attitudes towards driving are significantly associated with their reported engagement in high-risk driving behaviours. Correlations showed that high scorers on pre-driving attitudes to „speeding‟ at „Time 1‟ (measured using the DAQ) were high scorers on self-reported engagement in „Highway Code Violations‟ (measured using the DBQ) at „Time 2‟. Therefore, pre-drivers‟ high-risk attitudes towards speeding were associated with self-reported engagement in high-risk „Highway Code Violations‟ as drivers.
2) Pre-drivers‟ reported intentions to speed are significantly associated with their reported engagement in high-risk driving behaviours. Regressions showed that high scorers on pre- driving „intention to speed‟ at „Time 1‟ (measured using the extended TPB scale) were high scorers on self-reported engagement in „Highway Code Violations‟ (measured using the DBQ) at „Time 2‟. However, this was only when „Time 1‟ pre-driving measures were entered into the regression model. When both „Time 1‟ and „Time 2‟ measures were entered into the model their current intentions to speed rather than their pre-driving intentions were predictive of „Highway Code Violations‟. Therefore, intentions to speed (pre- and post-driver training) were associated with their reported engagement in high-risk driving „Highway Code Violations‟ as drivers.
3) Pre-drivers‟ reported engagement in high-risk road behaviour is significantly associated with their reported engagement in high-risk driving behaviours. Regressions showed that high scorers on pre-driving „Play and Social Activity on the Road‟ at „Time 1‟ (measured using the Adolescent Road User Behaviour Questionnaire) were high scorers on self-reported driving „Errors‟, „Lapses‟ and „Highway Code Violations‟ (measured using the DBQ) at „Time 2‟. Therefore, pre-drivers‟ who reported engagement in high-risk „Play and Social Activity on the Road‟ were associated with their reported engagement in high-risk driving „Errors‟, „Lapses‟ and „Highway Code Violations‟.
4) Sensation seeking is significantly associated with reported engagement in high-risk driving behaviours. Correlations showed significant positive associations between „Highway Code Violations‟ and scores on „Novelty‟, „Intensity‟ and overall sensation seeking (AISS). Regressions that were run to find predictors of driving behaviours using „Time 1‟ (pre- driving) factors and sensation seeking subscales revealed that „Novelty‟ in sensation seeking was a significant predictor of engagement in „Lapses‟. However, regressions run to find significant predictors of „Highway Code Violations‟, „Errors‟ and „Lapses‟ using both „Time 1‟ and „Time 2‟ measures (post-driver training) did not reveal any of the sensation seeking subscales as significant predictors.
Lonero and Clinton (1997a), Rothe (1986) and the American Automobile Association (1994) reported that skill deficiencies and inadvertent errors have an important role in novice driver accidents. When the amount of information received by drivers exceeds their processing capacity, the likelihood of being involved in accidents increases (Fergenson, 1971). Maycock (1995) identified a positive association between female drivers‟ self-reported errors of awareness and accident liability. In this study females reported significantly more „Errors‟ and „Lapses‟ whilst driving than males. These findings support previous research using the DBQ that have reported significantly more frequent engagement in „Errors‟ and „Lapses‟ by females than males (Özkan et al., 2006).
It is commonly accepted that driving skills increase with driving experience (Michon, 1985). Research has shown that female novices drive less then their male counterparts (Forsyth, Maycock, & Sexton, 1995). Therefore, one possible explanation for why females in this study reported more „Errors‟ and „Lapses‟ whilst driving could be that they lack driving experience because they do not drive as often as males. Female drivers may therefore take longer than males to automate the driving task and use larger amounts of mental resources
when they drive to attend to activities such as changing gears at the expense of failing to attend to other stimuli (Gregersen, 2003). However, it must be noted that no measures of driving experience (in terms of hours/miles driven) were taken in this study that would provide evidence to support this explanation. Another plausible explanation for the significant gender difference in the self-reporting of „Errors‟ and „Lapses‟ by novice male and female drivers‟ is that females could be more open to reporting these behaviours than males who may see it as reporting their weaknesses.
A disregard for legal driving rules and regulations among adolescents is often related to a driver‟s intentional risk taking behaviour (Hirsch, 2003). Research has shown that a drivers‟ collision likelihood can be predicted one to three years in advance by measuring intentions and beliefs (Maycock, 1995; Rutter & Quine, 1996; West, Elander et al., 1993; West & Hall, 1997). Maycock (1995) found that in both males and females a willingness to violate informal codes of good behaviour such as failing to comply with signs, signals and markings, strongly predicted their accident involvement. Consequently, Maycock concluded that regardless of gender, high scores on violations are associated with high accident liability.
There were no significant gender differences in the reporting of „Highway Code Violations‟ (HCV) in this study. Correlations showed that regardless of gender, driver‟s self-reported HCV‟s were positively associated with high-risk pre-driver attitudes towards speeding and drink-driving, frequent engagement in „Unsafe Road Crossing Behaviour‟ and „Play and Social Activity on the Road‟ and pre-driving intentions to speed in the future. HCV‟s were also positively associated with high-risk beliefs towards the morality of speeding (disagreeing that it is wrong to speed), anticipated regret (disagreeing that they would feel sorry for speeding) and subjective norms (agreeing that people would approve of their engaging in speeding) and negatively associated with perceived behavioural control (perceiving that it would be difficult to refrain from speeding). The results from these correlations suggest that positive (high-risk) intentions and beliefs towards speeding measured one year prior to learning to drive were positively associated with high frequency of self-reported HCV's as licensed drivers. Although no measure of accident-involvement was taken, following the logic of Maycock‟s (1995) results, high HCV reporters have a higher accident liability and they could be identified one year prior to driving according to their high-risk road behaviour, attitudes and intentions towards driving.
Males scored significantly higher on overall sensation seeking and on „Intensity‟ in sensation seeking thus supporting findings from previous research (Harré et al., 2000; Mallet & Vignoli, 2007; Waylen & McKenna, 2002abc, 2008). Correlations showed significant positive associations between scores on „Highway Code Violations‟ and scores on overall sensation seeking, „Novelty‟ and „Intensity‟. However, „Novelty‟ was only a significant predictor of engagement in „Lapses‟ when 'Time 1‟ (pre-driving) measures were added into the regression model. When „Time 1‟ and „Time 2‟ (post-driver training) measures were entered as predictors of „Errors‟, „Lapses‟ or „Highway Code Violations‟ neither overall sensation seeking or its subscales, „Novelty‟ and „Intensity‟, were significant predictors. Therefore this study concludes that although there may be a significant association between sensation seeking and driving behaviour there are other factors that are more predictive of engagement in risky driving behaviours. These findings are not surprising as previous studies using the AISS have been unable to report significant relationships between „Novelty‟ and risk behaviours (Andrew & Cronin, 1997; Arnett, 1994; Roth, 2003).
Drivers who have inappropriate attitudes towards driving violations such as speeding (i.e., they think they are acceptable behaviours) have higher accident rates than drivers who have appropriate attitudes (Assum, 1997; Lancaster & Ward, 2002; West & Hall, 1997). Attitudes formed during childhood and adolescence tend to persist throughout life as individuals will tend to only seek out new information that supports their original views and ignore conflicting information (Worchel & Shebilske, 1986). The results from this study showed that for all participants‟ attitude and intention scores dropped (became less risky) from „Time 1‟ to „Time 2‟. These attitude changes suggest that between 13-18 years old attitudes are still being formed and therefore interventions promoting safe driving practices could still create safe driving attitudes among adolescents that persist throughout their life.
Research has shown that our most strongly held attitudes, and those most resistant to change, are those formed as a result of direct personal experience with attitude objects (Olson & Zanna, 1983). The results from the regression analysis conducted in this study showed that once adolescents were drivers their attitudes as drivers towards speeding being safe or unsafe rather than their pre-driver attitudes predicted their actual self-reported engagement in driving violations. It is therefore imperative for road safety efforts to target pre-drivers and newly licensed drivers who do not have a vast amount of driving experience and have not developed strongly held high-risk attitudes towards driving dangerous practices. Pre-driver self-reported frequent exposure to the roads via play and socialising activities predicted self-reported
engagement in all three driving behaviours („Violations‟, „Errors‟ and „Lapses‟). These results therefore imply that adolescents who play and socialise on roads do not have a high regard for road safety.
Previous research has shown that adolescents who report positive (low-risk) attitudes towards traffic safety are less likely to report risky driving behaviour (Iversen, 2004; Ulleberg & Rundmo, 2003). It is therefore entirely plausible that by reducing inappropriate (high-risk) attitudes towards driving violations and dangerous road behaviours adolescents‟ accident involvement could be reduced. Interventions that educate adolescents about safe road behaviour (as both pedestrians and motor vehicle users) and aim to change pre-driver attitudes and behaviours towards general road safety could ultimately change their future attitudes towards road safety and their behaviours on the roads (as both pedestrians and motor vehicle users).
Future longitudinal studies need to be conducted over a longer period of time if road safety professionals are to be successful at finding the precise age when attitudes are most easily influenced and the age at which they become difficult to change. This information would prove useful to road safety professionals. However, in order to create long-lasting attitude change, individuals would need to be exposed to regular interventions that reinforce positive (low-risk) safe driving practices.
There were a few limitations with this study; firstly, it was not known whether road safety interventions had been implemented in some or all of the schools that took part in New Zealand during the course of the longitudinal study (1 year). Any interventions could have helped towards lowering the attitudes reported between the two time points. Secondly, as the questionnaires were asking about socially undesirable behaviour it is entirely possible that participants completed the questionnaire in a more socially desirable manner or under- reported „Highway Code Violations‟, „Errors‟ and „Lapses‟.
It would be interesting to include adolescents‟ intentions to drink and drive and to not wear seat belts as a pre- and post-driver training measure to find out if they are significant predictors of „Highway Code Violations‟, „Errors‟ or „Lapses‟. Also, it would be better to leave more than a year between sampling points, or to add a „Time 3‟, to allow the new drivers to gain more experience. This would help to ascertain how their attitudes may or may not have changed from pre- to post-driver training.
Once the idea for examining the importance of pre-driver attitudes and road behaviour on future driving behaviour was formulated there were a few problems with using Scottish participants, which is why this study was conducted in New Zealand. The problems with using Scottish participants were to do with tracking them over the course of the longitudinal study from pre-driving to post-driver training. „Time 1‟ would not be problematic because as participants‟ needed to be under the legal driving age, which is 17 years of age in Scotland, they would be at school and easy to track down. The problems were however with „Time 2‟ when the same participants from „Time 1‟ would need to be re-tested when they were over the legal driving age (thus over 17 years old). Since young people in Scotland tend to leave school at 17 years old and either go to University/move/travel/or go into employment, trying to follow them up would have been very problematic within the time constraints of a PhD. Instead, New Zealand (NZ) was chosen as the alternative venue for the longitudinal study because the legal driving age is 15 years of age and the driving terrain is very similar to that in Scotland. Participants would therefore be at school both pre-driving („Time 1‟) and post- driver training („Time 2‟) so easier to contact over the course of the study.
With studies being conducted in two countries it thus made it possible for cross-national comparisons to be made between Scotland and New Zealand at „Time 1‟ of both studies. After „Time 1‟ (Chapter Five) both studies were very different; whereas New Zealand adolescents reached the legal driving age and some became drivers, in Scotland none of the adolescents reached the legal driving age so no one became drivers. Therefore, only in New Zealand could the progression of time from pre- to post-driver training be monitored by measuring changes in driving attitudes and intentions before and after driver training. The findings from this study therefore cannot be generalised to all adolescents because there is a possibility that the attitudes, intentions and behaviours that were expressed are culturally bound within New Zealand. This is particularly so because the „Time 1‟ findings (Chapter Five) revealed that pre-driving adolescents in Scotland engaged in significantly more „Unsafe Road Crossing Behaviour‟ than New Zealand adolescents. Therefore, there is a possibility that in Scotland „Unsafe Road Crossing Behaviour‟ would be a significant predictor of future engagement in risky driving behaviour not „Play and Social Activity on the Road‟.
This study has provided evidence to show that past behaviour, attitudes and intentions predict future engagement in driving violations. This study therefore attempts to bridge the existing gap between past research conducted on pre-driver attitudes and road behaviour and research conducted on novice driver attitudes and behaviour. The findings from this study support
previous health research that has shown links between past behaviour and attitudes as well as between past behaviour and intentions (Bagozzi, 1981; Bagozzi et al., 1992; Bentler & Speckart, 1979, 1981; Conner & Armitage, 1998; Ouellette & Wood, 1998; Triandis, 1977).
Evidence has also been provided in this study to support the Problem Behaviour Theory (Jessor & Jessor, 1977; Chapter Three), in that one form of problem behaviour, namely high- risk adolescent road behaviour (in the form of „Play and Social Activity on the Road‟), was associated with risky driving behaviour (frequent engagement in „Highway Code Violations‟ whilst driving) which is another form of problem behaviour. The results also lend support to West et al.‟s (1998) study, as participants scoring high on sensation seeking reported riskier behaviour on the roads. Negative (high-risk) attitudes towards road safety were also linked to risk taking, thus supporting Iversen (2004) and Ulleberg and Rundmo‟s (2003) studies. This study however showed that both negative (high-risk) attitudes towards safe driving practices and engagement in dangerous pedestrian behaviour among pre-driving adolescents are predictors of future negative (high-risk) attitudes towards safe driving practices and engagement in dangerous driving behaviours. Therefore, efforts to prevent both the formation of negative road safety attitudes (towards both pedestrian and driving behaviour) and the occurrence of high-risk pedestrian behaviour could ultimately prevent future negative attitudes towards road safety (towards both pedestrian and driving behaviour) and engagement in dangerous driving practices.
This study builds on findings from the previous study (Chapter Five) by examining links between pre-driver attitudes, road behaviour, intentions to speed and driving behaviour. The results have supported the links found in Chapter Five between pre-driver behaviour, attitudes and future driving intentions and highlighted the need for pre-driving interventions. Due to the fluctuations in attitudes and intentions that were reported in this study, these interventions need to be implemented on a regular basis to reinforce road safety messages and ensure that the next generation of young drivers are more safety-conscious and are under-represented in road accident statistics.
The third study presented in Chapter Seven explores the stability of adolescents‟ attitudes in Scotland over a six-month period and looks at the potential for pre-driver road safety interventions to be effective at changing adolescents‟ attitudes and behaviours.
6.7 Results Summary
Pre-driving Adolescents:
1. Adolescent males are higher sensation seekers than females and report an enjoyment for intense experiences (for example, watching car crashes, standing on the edge of high places, gambling, listening to loud music).
2. High sensation seeking adolescents were more condoning of people choosing not to wear seat belts in cars, engaged in frequent unsafe road crossing behaviours and frequently played and socialised on the roads. They anticipated that they would feel good rather than sorry after engaging in speeding behaviour and they had a more accepting (riskier) attitude towards speed believing it to be „safe‟, „cautious‟, „enjoyable‟ and „good‟.
3. Adolescents who desired significantly more „Intensity‟ in sensation seeking had riskier (more condoning) attitudes towards driving violations such as „speeding‟, „drink-driving‟ and people „not wearing seat belts‟. They reported engaging in significantly riskier non- driving behaviours on the roads and reported frequently engaging in unsafe road crossing behaviour, social activity on the roads and engaged in significantly less protective behaviour on the roads such as wearing high visibility clothing at night. They also did not think that it is morally wrong for people to speed, anticipated that they would feel „good‟ rather than „sorry‟ after engaging in speeding behaviour and they had a more relaxed (condoning) attitude towards speed believing it to be „safe‟, „cautious‟, „enjoyable‟ and „good‟.
4. Adolescents who desired significantly more „Novelty‟ in sensation seeking reported frequently engaging in unsafe road crossing behaviour, anticipated that they would feel „good‟ rather than „sorry‟ after engaging in speeding behaviour and thought that people who were important to them (for example, friends and family members) would approve if they engaged in speeding in the future when they drive.
Changes in Attitudes and Intentions
5. Participants‟ general attitudes to speeding and its acceptability, their „intentions‟ to speed and their attitudes to „not wearing seat belts‟ and „drink-driving‟ reduced from „Time 1‟ to „Time 2‟ and had therefore become less risky.
6. At „Time 2‟ when 208 participants were driving and 263 were non-drivers; there were no significant differences between the two groups according to their general attitudes towards speeding, their intentions to speed in the future or their attitudes towards the acceptability of speeding, drink-driving and not wearing seat belts.
7. At „Time 2‟ when 263 participants were non-drivers and 208 were drivers (182 learner licence holders and 26 restricted licence holders); there were no significant differences between the three groups according to their general attitudes towards speeding, their