The aim of the present paper was to examine factors that may affect the likelihood of adolescent passengers asking a driver to drive more carefully when they feel unsafe as a car passenger. The paper is based on a questionnaire survey carried out among 4397 Norwegian adolescents. The results showed that the factors influencing adolescents' willingness to address unsafe driving were several. Female passengers were most likely to report that they spoke out to the driver when feeling unsafe in the car. This could to some extent be explained by gender differences in certain beliefs. That is, males seemed to perceive more negative consequences of addressing unsafe drives, to be less confident in their ability to influence an unsafe driver, to be more likely to accept risk taking from other drivers, and perceive less risk than females. In turn, these beliefs affected the likelihood of confronting an unsafe driver. Passengers disposed to experience anxiety felt most unsafe in their friend's car, an experience that increased the tendency of addressing unsafe driving. The results also demonstrated that a relatively large proportion of the adolescents thought that it was acceptable to ride with an unsafe driver. This kind of belief lessened the likelihood of passengers addressing unsafe driving, as well as being most prominent among those who rode with friends who displayed the most risky driving style. (A) "Reprinted with permission from Elsevier".
Abstract