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 Estonia are presented. A total of 382 people answered the Section 1 of the questionnaire. Males were 258 (67.5% of the total sample) and females were 124 (32.5% of the total sample). Their mean age was 20.4 years (standard deviation 1.95), ranging between 187 and 25 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. Few Estonian young drivers own a car, though female drivers are more likely to own a car than male drivers. They however refer to use a car on a very regular basis (most of them drive everyday, again with a prevalence of male drivers compared to female drivers), and for relatively long trips. Interestingly, male drivers refer to drive after midnight relatively often (about half of them drive after midnight more than 2 times a week), where female drivers are far less likely to drive after midnight (about 36% them do not drive after midnight at all). Male drivers also refer to have received a traffic fine less often than female drivers, mostly for having parked where it was forbidden, and for speeding. Interestingly, most of the respondents state that they have never driven after having drunk alcohol (though it must be noticed that the item do not refer to being drunk, but only to driving after having drunk some alcohol). However, less than half of them refer of having recognized some of the symptoms associated with driving under the effects of alcohol, especially difficulties on keeping focused on the road. This might suggest that a consistent number of young drivers are still unaware of the negative effects f driving under the effects of alcohol. Summarizing, Estonian young drivers seem to be characterized by being frequent drivers, quite expert indeed, also experienced of driving during night hours (especially male drivers), and very aware of the dangers associated with driving under the effects of alcohol. (Author/publisher) This document is available at http://www.webicarus.eu/
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