This paper presents a study by the Department of Psychology at the University of Manchester, England, of non-professional company car drivers working for the same organisation. Some but not all of the drivers use their cars extensively as part of their work. In the preliminary part of the study, 18 interviews of drivers were conducted, from whose results the questionnaire for the main part of the study was generated. The first part of the questionnaire was the Manchester Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBG) in a 28-item form; the second part was based on Ajzen's theory of planned behaviour (TPB), a model claiming to explain the psychological processes underlying behaviour. The questionnaire was sent to over 1100 company car drivers in the organisation during October 1998. The paper details the characteristic of driver behaviour reported by the drivers, and the result of factor analyses and statistical significance tests on the DBG items; it also gives factor score differences by accident involvement. The DBQ results emphasise the differences between company car drivers and drivers in general, and suggest further study topics. The present study also used the TPB to investigate three driving offences relevant to company car driving. The TPB results perhaps offer the best directions for further research.
Samenvatting