Recent research on the relation between accident liability and the personal characteristics of drivers has been examined with the aim of identifying promising areas for further research into driving behaviour, and investigating the factors which affect accidents. The review concentrates mainly on research carried out in the last twenty years, and is confined to work published in the English language. A parallel exercise has been carried out with the German language literature (Noordzij, 1990). Items have been included in the review only if the dependent variable was, or included, some measure of accident history. Some restrictions on the human factors literature have also been necessary; consequently vision, physical fitness, and medical factor have been excluded, as were transient states such as alcohol. The review is therefore basically concerned with individual differences of a psychological or social nature. Studies have been examined in terms of their design methodology, testing procedures, and control of extraneous variables with particular emphasis on methods used for the control of exposure to risk. The research reviewed has been grouped into seven main topic areas with the most important studies being presented both in tabular form and under discussion in the main text. Much of the individual differences literature examined cannot be regarded as methodologically sound; various promising areasfor research are identified and discussed.
Samenvatting