Evidence suggests that in addition to demographics, there are strong relationships between facets of drivers’ personality (e.g., aggression, thrill-seeking, altruism), aversion to risk and self-reported measures of driving behaviour, particularly speeding. However, evidence is muted by the reliance on people to self-report driving behaviour and how this compares to what is observed in the field. This paper reports on a study of 133 drivers in Sydney, who are asked to complete a short survey to develop their personality and risk aversion profiles and self-reported speeding behaviour. A Global Positing System (GPS) device is then installed in their vehicle for a 10 week period as part of a major investigation of driving behaviour from which empirical measures of speeding are derived based. Among the most pertinent findings are: 1) the tendency for drivers to both under and over-estimate their propensity to speed, 2) significant heterogeneity in speeding with a small, but notable number of drivers exceeding the limit for more than 20 percent of the distance driven, 3) weak relationships between the personality/risk-aversion measures and actual speeding, and 4) the suggestion that different personality traits appear to influence behaviour in different situations both from self-reported and actual speeding behaviour. (Author/publisher)
Abstract