Research On The Psychological Causes Of Traffic Accidents Based On The Driver's Perspective

Traffic accidents have become a public hazard of human beings,90% of which are caused by human factors.As the driver’s psychological factors are not stable,sometimes it will affect the reliability of driving.Therefore,deep analysis of driver psychology is helpful to prevent the occurrence of traffic accidents.The study adopts interview and questionnaire survey methods to explore the psychological causes of traffic accident drivers from the perspective of drivers,which mainly includes three parts.Study 1: Using interview method to study the psychological factors of 10 accident drivers.This is also the basis of the subsequent tool compilation.Study 2: Preparation of Dangerous Driving Behavior Questionnaire and Driver Perception Decision-Making Questionnaire.There were 21 items in the Dangerous Driving Behavior Questionnaire,which were divided into three dimensions: emotional driving,overestimation of skill and danger tendency.Driver Perception DecisionMaking Questionnaire consists of 22 items,which are divided into five dimensions:risk attitude,visual field perception,attention allocation,hazard perception and decision error.A total of 370 valid data were collected in the prediction stage,and the overall reliability and validity of the two questionnaires were confirmed by data analysis.Study 3: An online survey of psychological causes of traffic accidents.Two selfmade questionnaires,the Multi-dimensional Driving Style Inventory and the Chinese Big Five Personality Questionnaire were used to investigate accident drivers.The purpose was to:(1)explore the relationship between psychological causes of accidents,and compare the psychological traits of accident drivers and non-accident drivers;(2)try to establish the prediction relationship between drivers’ psychological causes and traffic accidents.A total of 684 valid data were collected,including 474 drivers with accidents and 210 drivers without accidents.The results showed:(1)The scores of dangerous driving behavior and negative driving style of accident drivers were significantly higher than those of non-accident drivers,and the scores of perceived decision-making,conscientiousness and agreeableness of accident drivers were significantly lower than those of non-accident drivers;(2)In terms of demographic variables: 1)the scores of overestimation of skill,risk attitude,danger perception and negative driving style of male drivers were significantly higher than those of female drivers,while the scores of neuroticism were significantly lower than that of female drivers;2)the risk perception ability of young drivers was significantly lower than that of middle-aged and elderly drivers,while the scores of sensation seeking,anxiety and distraction were significantly higher than those of middle-aged and elderly drivers;3)The scores of emotional driving,skill overestimation,risk attitude,visual field perception,attention distribution,decision error,sensation seeking and risk taking of drivers with long mileage were significantly higher than those of drivers with short mileage,while the scores of anxiety were significantly lower than those of drivers with short mileage;(3)In terms of the psychological causes of accidents,dangerous driving behavior,negative driving style and perceived decision-making ability were positively correlated with neuroticism and openness personality traits,and negatively correlated with conscientiousness and agreeableness personality traits;(4)Skill overestimation,risk attitude and sensation seeking have significant positive predictive effects on the occurrence of accidents,while conscientiousness has significant negative predictive effects on the occurrence of accidents.Conclusions:(1)The Dangerous Driving Behavior Questionnaire and the Driver Perception Decision-Making Questionnaire have good reliability and validity on the whole,and can be used as a tool to measure the psychological causes of drivers’ traffic accidents;(2)The gender,age,driving age and mileage of drivers have certain relationship with psychological causes of accidents;(3)The more prone drivers’ personality traits are to neuroticism and openness,the more likely they are to have traffic accidents.On the contrary,the more conscientious and agreeableness,the less prone to accidents;(4)Accident drivers exhibit more dangerous driving behaviors than non-accident drivers,and their risk perception ability is weak,and their driving style and personality traits tend to be negative;(5)Overestimation of skills,risk attitude,sensation seeking and conscientiousness can predict the occurrence of traffic accidents.