Comparison between young male drivers’ self-assessed and objectively measured driving skills

Self-assessment of skills is a self-generated feedback process that contributes to confidence in one’s skills. The higher one’s self-assessed skills, the more likely one is to feel competent a particular domain thereby influencing the related behaviors. Drivers’ self-assessed driving skills are not always accurate, which may cause serious problems such as underestimation of risk, reckless driving and accidents. Most previous research on self-assessment of driving skills did not compare self-reported skills to objectively measured driving skills, so the aim of this study was to test the accuracy of young male drivers’ self-assessments of driving skills using a driving simulator, and to examine whether self-assessment accuracy varied with driving skill, experience or sensation-seeking propensity. Results showed that the drivers’ selfassessments were inconsistent with their driving performance, and this inconsistency varied with driving skill, driving experience and sensation-seeking propensity in a safety-critical way