As reported in White Paper adopted by European Commission “among all the means of transport used by Man, road transport is the most dangerous one”. Since human factors are implicated in about 95% of the accidents, international scientific studies have focused on the individual characteristics of young drivers in order to identify dimensions that can account for risky driving. The aims of the project articulated in a plan of 30 months, are • the identification of the most important psycho-social characteristics related to high risk driving behaviour in novice drivers in different countries of the E.U. and • the construction of a European training package focused on the modification of these characteristics aimed to the reduction of accidents in young drivers. Car accidents are determined by different interacting causes. Factors affecting the driver have a great importance. Statistics indicate that the responsibility of road accidents is largely due to human factors, such as driving errors, deliberate violations of the highway code, psycho-physiological condition of the driver. All these potential causes are very relevant in a population at particularly high risk for car accidents, which are young drivers. The elective strategies to prevent car accidents in this population have to be sought in training and formation. In order to guide new and effective strategies and preventive action that could be implemented on a European scale, the psychological and social factors that cause the risk behaviour in young drivers should be identified. The project ICARUS pursues as objective: • to identify the factors that influence the risk behaviour in young drivers • to build a European training model based on these factors. The project may be declined following three different targets: 1. identify a European network of training agencies for road safety 2. conduct an analysis on the style and driving habits of young drivers in different EU Countries. The following variables will be considered: errors, violations, risk taking, perception of internal control on road accidents, aggressive driving behaviour, anxiety, consciousness, etc. 3. define a set of guidelines to approach the theme of road safety with young drivers on a European scale. These guidelines will be reported in a manual, supported by a CD-Rom with specific exercises and by a dedicated movie. In this report the results of the research on risk factors of young drivers in Austria are presented. A total of 302 people answered the Section 1 of the questionnaire. Males were 149 (49.3% of the total sample) and females were 153 (50.7% of the total sample). Their mean age was 19.77 years (standard deviation .44), ranging between 17 and 23 years. Age was no significantly different between males and females. Not all the respondents answered all the items of the questionnaire, thus each analysis was run on the largest sample available for that analysis (missing values were not estimated). Tables 1 to 9 show the distribution as a function of gender of the answers to items concerning the driving habits and experiences. Relatively few Austrian young drivers own a car (about 30% of the respondents), independently of the gender. They however refer to use a car on a regular basis (most of them drive everyday, again without a prevalence of one gender), and for relatively long trips (especially for male drivers). Both male and female drivers refer to drive after midnight relatively often (about 48% of them drive after midnight more than 2 times a week). Male drivers also refer to have received a traffic fine more often than female drivers, mostly for having parked where it was forbidden, and for speeding. Most of the respondents refer not to drive after having drunk alcohol (and it must be noticed that the item do not refer to being drunk, but only to driving after having drunk some alcohol). Summarizing, Austrian young drivers seem to be characterized by being frequent drivers, somehow experienced of driving during night hours, and very aware of the dangers associates with driving under the effects of alcohol. (Author/publisher) This document is available at http://www.webicarus.eu/
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