This paper reports a study of the predictors of intentions to commit driving violations. It generalises Ajzen's 1985 theory of planned behaviour, which suggests that intention to perform a given behaviour may be predicted by three primary antecedents: (1) attitude to behaviour; (2) subjective norm; and (3) perceived control. The authors investigate the hypothesis that the addition of measures of moral norm and anticipated regret to the three primary predictors improve the prediction of intention. A pilot survey of over 200 drivers used standard procedures to identify modal salient beliefs and referents in relation to commission of the following violations. The first is cutting across lanes of traffic to leave a motorway at the correct junction. The second is weaving in or out of lanes of slow-moving traffic on a dual carriageway, to make faster progress. The third is overtaking on the inside lane of a motorway. The beliefs, identified in the pilot survey, were incorporated in the main interviews, to measure attitudes to the violation and subjective norm. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to assess the model's ability to predict intentions to violate. For each of the three driving violations, the model's predictive power was significantly improved by adding the two predictors of personal norm. The results show the importance of internalised ideas of right and wrong in forming attitudes to the commission of anti-social behaviours like driving violations, of which there is public condemnation.
Abstract