Risky driving - speeding, following too closely, driving after drinking or drug use - is conceptualised as problem behaviour among adolescents and youth. A psychosocial approach to the explanation of problem behaviour in youth - problem-behaviour theory - is elaborated in this paper and applied to risky driving. Psychosocial risk factors for impaired driving that derive from personality, the social environment, and from other behaviours are delineated, and research showing their effectiveness in accounting for adolescent problem drinking and drug use are presented. It is argued that risky driving is part of a larger syndrome of adolescent problem behaviour and co-varies with alcohol and drug use as well as with delinquent behaviour. Recent research findings that illustrate this point are discussed. A four-item risky driving scale is shown to be related to a variety of adolescent problem- and health-related behaviour in a school-based sample of adolescents aged 16 years 6 months and older. Further, the psychosocial risk factors in problem-behaviour theory account for approximately 25% of the variance in risky driving behaviour for both sexes. Risky driving behaviour emerges as an aspect of a larger adolescent lifestyle and this has major implications for the design of prevention/intervention programmes. (A)
Abstract