The aim of this study was to gain insight into the nature and extent to which certain types of unsafe driving behaviours occur. Before carrying out this empirical study all articles in the literature concerning studies with the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) were reviewed. The DBQ measures unsafe acts (errors and violations) of drivers. In this study a Dutch version of the DBQ was developed consisting of 48 items covering different types of errors and violations and some background questions about gender, age, the number of years one has a driving license, annual mileage, number of fines and accident involvement in the past 3 years, type of accident(s) involved, region and main motives for driving. From a data base of more than 70,000 people a stratified sample was drawn. The sample was stratified by gender and age. The sample was compared with the national statistics on people with a driving license. This comparison showed no significant differences. A total of 2002 drivers filled in the DBQ by e-mail. The introduction of this report describes Reason’s violation and error taxonomy and how unsafe acts (errors and violations) fit into the general model that explains how accidents are caused. Four factors were extracted together explaining 32.5% of the total variance in the responses. These factors are: a violation factor, a factor called dangerous errors, a factor called inattention and a factor called lapses, respectively explaining 15.1%, 9.9%, 4.1% and 3.3% of the total variance in the responses. The results of the factor analysis with these four factors, in which errors of inattention and lapses are split up into separate factors, are very similar to the results with the Swedish DBQ. The effects of age and gender on each of the factors were determined after controlling for mileage (mileage as covariate).
Abstract