Driver Attitudes and the Effects They Have on Driving Ability

The topic that I chose to research was driver attitudes/behavior and the effects that they can have on one's ability to drive. My hypothesis was that younger drivers (16-20) would be the group most likely to have more accidents, greater speed and be less safe in general. Because I am a student who falls very close to this range and has had experiences similar to those I am researched (i.e. accidents, speeding tickets, etc.), I believe that I was more critical of this group, thus the reason I said they are the least safe group when driving. To test this hypothesis, I created a survey of 20 questions pertaining to key issues such as seat belt usage, alcohol use and speed, from which I analyzed the data collected to prove or disprove the hypothesis stated above. The questions included characteristic, behavior, knowledge, scale, attitude and skip contingency types. The last question was a ranking question which was thrown in there to make an even number of questions to respond to, and it dealt with safety a little bit. Since I work at an insurance office, I thought of no better place to conduct such research. The respondents were willing individuals (mostly current clients) who visited our office during business hours during the week before exams (December 8-12, 8:30AM to 5PM). I attempted to obtain a sample similar to that of society, but this was hard since it was a survey randomly given out to those who came in. One group was not represented at all (31-35), which may or may not have affected the outcome of the survey.

Because I used a survey, this was a positivist approach and quantitative data was collected, deductive reasoning occurred to help to confirm or disprove the hypothesis and/or discover patterns of human behavior that coincided with the research topic. The only problem that I think that may have occurred was that some respondents may not have been 100% truthful due to the fact that some questions asked about illegal behavior (i.e. drunk driving). My status/role as a young person may have played into effect in the way that other younger individuals were more likely to be open and honest with me, whereas adults may have been less likely to be honest with me regarding their driving behaviors, in order to create a "role model" for younger drivers. Because I am an employee of the company that holds their insurance, respondents may not have been totally truthful in fear we would raise their rates or cancel their insurance (not true), which may have also played a role and be an example of interviewer bias and social desirability.

The research method being applied was the survey method. Three main features of a successful survey include clear and concise questions, an interview with willing respondents, and data analysis to discover what the results of the survey are. One strength of the survey method (face to face approach) is that it has the highest response rates and allows for longer questionnaires. Facial expressions and body language may also help to gain information about the respondent. One disadvantage of the same is that the interviewer's voice and question wording may have some affect on the respondent's answer, which sometimes causes a skewedness of data.

Before taking part in the survey, respondents were advised that their anonymity would be protected at all costs and their answers would in no way have any effect on their insurance rates, this was research being conducted for a college course. There was no place on the survey for a name or any other identifying characteristic (other than the typical, race/age/sex questions), which made it difficult for anyone to match up answers with a particular respondent. Data was then sorted through and put into groups to allow for easier analysis to determine results for the hypothesis. If there were any questions that the respondent felt as if they did not't want to answer, then they were not required to do so, but it was highly recommended to answer them all as honestly as possible in order to collect "true" data. Fortunately, no one omitted any questions, which allowed for me to collect a decent amount of data on which to base my assumptions.

When giving the survey, there were a few questions that caused problems for the respondents, or the respondents made comments about. One individual suggested that the question be re-worded to include "or age" at the end, so as to clear up any confusion. The law in Maryland is that passengers in a car under the age of 16 must utilize safety restraints regardless of where they are seated, but if over the age of 16, only front seat passengers are required to use safety restraints. Another respondent who was from Missouri had difficulty with the questions that pertained only to Maryland, which was expected, however, they correctly answered both. It was suggested that there be a "don't know" option added as an answer for this question for circumstances like this. This was not an option on the survey because usually when this is an answer option, respondents are more likely to choose it as it seems the easiest to choose, which is one of the reasons that questions with this option are referred to as floater questions, they provide no real data due to the answer options that are offered. The answer list for one of my questions was not exhaustive, though it covered a wide variety of answers, there were several others that were suggested, such as weather conditions, road conditions, car malfunction and being tired. The same goes for the last question, which was not of as great importance, but still left room for other options, which is why I crafted it to have "other" as an option. Only one of my uestions seemed to be difficult to answer for many. Perhaps it was due to the design of the question, which required a little more thought than the others, or perhaps it was the wording of my directions on how to answer it, no one really said why. One individual felt the need to justify why she ranked safety as most important when purchasing a new vehicle. Her reasoning was that she was recently in a fairly serious accident and is now paranoid about safety. Question #14 did not have an exhaustive list of answers either. One respondent stated that the reason she usually speeds is to stay with the flow of traffic. Another respondent listed the fact that she felt as if the speed limits were set too low as her reason for speeding. Some individuals were much more responsive to the questions and offered more feedback to get the feel of an interview via survey questions. This helped to gain more information as to how they felt about certain issues such as drunk driving for example, which can often be a taboo topic as it can be emotional, offensive and controversial. For example, question #19 generated a lengthy response from one particular respondent. First of all, she felt as if the wording was a little confusing, and was unsure of what exactly I was asking. Once she understood, there were several ways she could answer it, depending upon the situation. If she drove to the bar where she was drinking, then yes, most of the time when she left, she was exceeding the legal BAC limit in Maryland, but felt as if she was not impaired by the drinks she had because she was rarely affected by 2 drinks. She felt strongly about "drunken driving" rather than "drinking and driving," which she defined the first as driving when impaired by the drinks you have had, and the latter by driving when exceeding the legal BAC level, but not impaired by the drinks you have had. The same individual made comments about question #14 as well. She felt like more than one of the answers fit her most of the time, but forced herself into one category (one of the advantages of having categories pre-defined rather than leaving them as open ended questions). For question #5, there were certain times which this individual did put her seat belt on, but only in these rare cases where she was being pulled over by a police officer (to avoid an additional fine) or when the driver of the vehicle requested that she wear it. Another respondent also noted that this was a situation where they did wear a seat belt on occasion. It was suggested for questions #16-17 that it be re-worded so as to gauge what the survey takers thought rather than what they think others are thinking: On average what % of accidents do you estimate are due to speeding? Less than 25% More than 25% More than 50% More than 75%.

Findings of the survey were not very surprising, in fact, they agreed with the hypothesis that I had formed before conducting the research. The sample was fairly evenly split for sex with 7 females and 6 males, all but one age group was represented, but all respondents were the same race. The majority of respondents stated that they wore a seat belt every time that they were the driver of a vehicle as well as when they were a front seat passenger. However, it drops to almost every time when a passenger in the back seat. Seven of the respondents correctly answered the question regarding the seat belt law in Maryland. More than half of the respondents had been involved in at least one accident while they were driving, but only 2 of those 7 were at fault. An overwhelming nine people stated that they normally drive six to ten miles over the posted speed limit, and listed habit as the main reason for doing so. Even so, these nine people felt as if they were almost always a safe driver (in their own opinion). A mere three people correctly answered that 29% of all accidents nationwide were due to speeding in 2000. Most people seemed to think it was a higher rate, which is not surprising considering the fact that so many responded that they themselves speed. There were six who correctly answered that 42% of all highway deaths were alcohol related in 2002. Ten people correctly answered that the legal blood alcohol level in Maryland is .08, and eight said that they never drive if they are exceeding the BAC level for Maryland.

After carefully categorizing the data collected into smaller groups, I was actually unable to determine whether or not my original hypothesis was correct because of a flaw in the survey; I failed to ask at the age of the driver when the accidents occurred. It is unfair to make the assumption that those who answered that they had previously had accidents had them while they were in the age group they belong to now. For example, a 21 year old who may have had an accident as a first year driver when they were 16, or a 34 year old who had an accident at the legal drinking age of 21. However, the part of my hypothesis that regarded higher rates of speed was most likely correct due to the fact that most of the respondents answered that they drove 6-10 miles over the posted speed limit.

In conclusion, after carefully studying and rehashing the details of this survey research, I have decided that drivers on the road today are quite unsafe. We live in a world that moves too fast and we do everything we can to multi-task, even while driving, no matter how many unsafe situations it may put us (as well as others) in everyday. Even so, we still view ourselves as safe drivers, even though we often break laws made to protect us. It is in my opinion that we are safer passengers than we are drivers. The main points that I would like a broader audience to learn from this is just how unsafe we are every time we get behind the wheel of a vehicle (or even in a vehicle). Not only are we putting our lives in jeopardy, but we are responsible for the lives of others on the road as well with the actions that we commit.