Day, Marianne R., Thompson, Andrew R., Poulter, Damian R. ORCID: 0000-0003-2521-5959, Stride, Christopher B. and Rowe, Richard (2018) Why do drivers become safer over the first three months of driving? A longitudinal qualitative study. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 117. pp. 225-231. ISSN 0001-4575 (doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2018.04.007)

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Abstract

Drivers are at high crash risk when they begin independent driving, with liability decreasing steeply over the first three months. Their behavioural development, and other changes underlying improved safety are not well understood. We adopted an innovative longitudinal qualitative design, with thirteen newly qualified drivers completing a total of 36 semi-structured interviews, one, two and three months after acquiring a full UK driving license. The interviews probed high-risk factors for new drivers, as well as allowing space for generating novel road safety issues. Analysis adopted a dual deductive and inductive interpretative thematic approach, identifying three super-ordinate themes: (1) Improvements in car control skills and situation awareness; (2) A reduction in the thrill of taking risks when driving against a background of generally increasing driving speed; (3) Early concerns about their social status in the eyes of other road users during the early stages of driving, which may put pressure on them to drive faster than they felt comfortable with. The study provides important new leads towards understanding how novice driving becomes safer over the first few months of driving, including how well-studied concepts of driving skill and style may change during development of independent driving, and a focus on the less rigorously studied concept of social status.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).
Uncontrolled Keywords:	automobile driving; risk-taking; young adults; novice drivers; qualitative; longitudinal
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > School of Human Sciences (HUM)
Last Modified:	27 Apr 2020 17:02
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/19684

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