Success in passing the driving exam and attitudes towards risk taking among pre-drivers

ISSN 2351-7034 (online). Conference is organized by Kaunas University of Technology, JSC “Lietuvos geležinkeliai”, IFToMM National Committee of Lithuania, Lithuanian Society of Automotive Engineers, The Division of Technical Sciences of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Klaipėda University, Vilnius Gediminas Technical UniversityResearchers agree that novice drivers comprise the group that is the most at-risk of traffic accidents and should be investigated more intensively, especially in the pre-driving period. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between pre-drivers' attitudes towards risk taking on the road and success in passing the driving exam. 475 driving-license candidates (187 males, 288 females) participated in the study (range of age was from 17 to 58 years). Traffic safety attitudes were measured by Risk-Taking Attitudes' Scale one month before driving exam. Success in driving exam was measured as the nominal variable "passed/failed" and was taken from the official data-base of "Regitra" as an objective measure. The results revealed that male pre-drivers have more risk prone driving attitudes than females. All participants scored higher on attitudes towards joyriding and towards showing off driving skills to others than on risky attitudes towards drinking and driving and towards violation of traffic rules. Only attitudes towards violation of traffic rules and joyriding were related to success in exam among males, attitudes were not related to success in driving exam among females. The conclusion could be drawn that risky attitudes in the pre-driving period were not very informative for explaining success in passing the driving examPsichologijos katedraVytauto Didžiojo universiteta