If false consensus operates in the realm of perceptions of driver behaviour, drivers should see those errors and violations which they personally engage in as being committed by a higher percentage of other drivers than should drivers who do not commit these errors and violations. The study reported in this paper was designed to examine this issue by asking a sample of 1656 drivers (a) how frequently they themselves engaged in each of a number of errors or violations in the course of their own driving; and (b) to estimate the percentage of other drivers who commit the same errors and violations on a fairly regular basis. The authors expected to find that those who reported that they engaged in ified driving behaviours would make higher estimates of the percentage of other road users who engage in such behaviours than would those who reported that they did not engage in these behaviours. To assess the presence of false consensus, respondents were divided into three groups reflecting frequency of commission, on the basis of their responses to each behavioural item. Without exception, drivers who said that they had never committed a behaviour made average estimates of the percentage of others who engage in that behaviour that were significantly lower than those made by drivers who said that they had committed the behaviour in question at least occasionally. Drivers who said that they had committed a behaviour hardly ever made average estimates that fell between these two extremes, and for the majority (12/16) of the behaviours studied here, the three groups' average estimates differed from each other significantly. These results suggest that it might be useful to provide drivers with consensus information in propaganda intended to promote road safety.
Samenvatting