The purpose of the study was to compare the reported approaches of truck drivers to those of non-truck drivers toward reckless on-road behaviors. One hundred and sixty-seven adult males, including 70 non-truck drivers, completed the questionnaires voluntarily. The truck drivers were employees of a concrete manufacturing company working at various company plants throughout Israel. Seventy were professional mixer truckers and 27 were tip-truckers. The participants completed the Reckless Driving Self-Report Scale based on Taubman Ben-Ari et al. [Taubman Ben-Ari, O., Florian, V., Mikulincer, M., 1999. The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: a testof terror management mechanisms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76, 35û45], adapted for truck drivers for this study. It was expectedthat non-professional, as compared to professional (truck) drivers, wouldbe more permissive regarding reckless driving, since driving risks are less prominent in their daily driving experience. An ANOVA performed on meanreckless-driving scores yielded significant results. The post hoc Sch_ffetest indicated significantly higher reckless-driving scores for automobile drivers as compared to both mixer-truck driver scores and tip-truck driver scores. In addition, the reckless-driving scores for mixer-truck drivers were significantly higher than the tip-truck driver scores. We discuss various explanations for the findings and consider possible implications for training strategies in organizations as well as for media campaigns focused on mutual safe road use of truck drivers and private vehicle drivers. (A) Reprinted with permission from Elsevier.
Abstract