Are you more skilful that the average driver?

[Sofiekp]

Hey,

I'm new on here and I need a bit of advice. I'm a third year psychology student at Newcastle University and I'm doing my dissertation on how overconfidence and personality may affect risky driving behaviour. I think the results could be quite interesting seeing as new EU legislation that comes into effect at the end of Dec means that insurance companies won't be able to discriminate against gender. They'll have to find other ways to crank up our premiums instead!! Personality may be one of the ways that they do this, although how they'd implement it in real life maybe an issue.

I am desperately trying to recruit people to take part in my questionnaire (for which you could win £20 worth of vouchers). I'd really like to get a range of individuals and not just use students as it means that my results will be more reliable.

However, having read the rules on posting, I know I can't just post the link to my questionnaire in here and that I should try and go through "normal" channels but don't know what those normal channels would be? Any help would be much appreciated, thanks!

Sofie

[Sofiekp]

Here's the link for my questionnaire: http://nclpsych.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6lhB4N...


And thanks for the advice and responding so quickly!!

[Sofiekp]

Also don't forget to email me if you want to be entered into the prize draw!

[Sofiekp]

Mintyhit said:

Much less safe
A little safer
About the same
A little more safe
Much more safe

Err, what's the difference between these two?

Sorry that was a typo, corrected it now. Thanks!

Edited by Sofiekp on Friday 7th December 12:30

[Sofiekp]

Disco You said:

You forgot the units on the Nile question.

It's a text based entry so you can put whatever units you think are right, however to avoid confusion in the future I've asked for the length in miles.

Thanks!

[Sofiekp]

thinfourth2 said:

Do us a favour

We get this almost weekly

No one has ever come back and told us the results

At least have the decency to return once you have reached a conclusion

I should have preliminary results after Xmas and the final report will by ready by the end of march. I will make a big note to remind myself to post the results when they're ready

[Sofiekp]

Jasandjules said:

How do we define the average driver?

There are many on the roads who hog the middle lane, fail to indicate when appropriate, keep their full beam on, drive with fog lights on in normal weather, drive at the speed limit in heavy rain/thick fog.

Are they the benchmark? If not, what is the benchmark?

The bench mark is your opinion based upon your experiences and view on the world! Obviously people who you notice to be driving badly are the most salient. however, on an average trip you may noticed one or two bad drivers so don't forget that you will have passed many others who did nothing the grab your attention and were driving "normally and safely" .

[Sofiekp]

stevesingo said:

Sofie,

I'm afraid your survey appears to take a very simplistic approach to driving and road use in general.

It is plain to see that your research will conclude that over confident drivers take more risks, have more accidents and have more motoring convictions.

The problem lies with a discrepancy between the drivers own belief in their ability and the level of ability they have.

A police traffic officer answering the survey would indicate that confident drivers have less issues. However, for every person who is a good driver with confidence there are hundreds who think they are great, but in reality are very poor.

In order to qualify over confidence, it needs to me measured against ability, and aside from some questions on how many accidents, convictions ect there is no means of assesing ability.

A second part of my study aims to address an individual's ability and compare it against their responses to the questionnaire and this will be done using a driving simulator. Although not perfect, as they won't be in an actual car on an actual road, funding prevents me from doing so and this is the best I can do under the circumstances. It should still produce some quite exciting results. Time constraints also play a massive part and so I am only able to look at certain aspects however much I would like to consider all the different causes for risky driving behaviour! Please bear in mind that this is an undergraduate dissertation not a PHD!

Also just wanted to say thank you to everyone that has taken the questionnaire. I've had a great response already!!

[Sofiekp]

R8Steve said:

I'll be honest - i started it but gave up when it stopped talking about driving and asking questions about Mozart, etc - i fail to see how that is relevant or how the results of these will benefit

I know the last few questions may look a bit random. They are trying to assess whether overconfidence is consistent across domains and not just for driving.

[Sofiekp]

GokTweed said:

Sofia, i know you're a third year, like me, and just doing a dissertation, like me at the moment, and you're only at Newcastle so i've lowered the expectations a little but seriously i'm assuming english is your first language and i've got to say, it doesn't seem to be worded very professionally at all.

For example, and i think it's already been highlighted: 'Stay in a motorway lane that you know will be closed ahead until the last minute before forcing your way into the other lane'
You don't force anything it's called merging in turn and, if there was an altercation, the fault lies with the driver in the lane that is being merged into for not giving way not with the driver doing the merging.

That particular question is crap tbh and needs rephrasing if you're serious about getting any decent results. Also overtaking on the inside lane is actually called 'undertaking' so rephrase these too. And why all the questions on disease incidence rates? Also you repeat the same question with different phrasing is that meant to try to catch people out?

If you're just going to fudge the results to try to get good marks then fair enough but if you're actually trying to get good useable data out of it then you should change a few things IMO.

As i have said before ... The questions are not my own and therefore the phasing is also not my own! The question you are talking about is from a very well known and tested questionnaire (Manchester driving behaviour questionnaire or MDBQ). This has been tested and re-tested with results showing strong reliability:

"The Manchester Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) is increasingly becoming one of the most prominent measurement scales to examine self-reported driving behaviours (Lajunen & Summala, 2003). For example, the DBQ has been extensively utilised in a range of driver safety research areas, such as: age differences in driving behaviour (Dobson et al., 1999), the genetics of driving behaviour (Bianchi & Summala, 2004), cross cultural studies (Lajunen et al., 2003) as well as factors contributing to accident involvement (Dobson et al., 1999; Meksen, Lajunen & Summala, 2002; Parker et al., 1995) and demerit point loss (Davey et al., 2007). Furthermore, the versatility of the DBQ has also been demonstrated via the utilisation of the instrument in a number of countries, including China (Xie & Parker, 200), Australia (Davey et al., 2006; Dobson et al., 1999; Newnam, Watson & Murray, 2004), New Zealand (Sullman, Meadows & Pajo, 2002), Finland (Bianchi & Summala, 2004; Mesken et al., 2002), and the United Kingdom (Parker et al., 1995; Parker et al., 2000)."

Taken from: A study of contemporary modifications to the Manchester Drivers Behaviour Questionnaire for organizational fleet settings

James E. Freeman, Jeremy D. Davey, Darren E. Wishart
DOI:11610


As for the disease incident rate questions etc. The instructions warned that some of the questions on confidence were reverse ordered. This is a very common psychology tool used to prevent people from just selecting the same answer every time without thinking.

[Sofiekp]

GokTweed said:

So that questionnaire has been approved? bloody hell that's a shambles!

I didn't mean how the answers were a different orientation for alternating questions more what they were doing in a driving questionnaire?

to see if overconfidence is something that is consistent across domains e.g. general knowledge and numeracy, but is not something that I can strictly say before someone takes the questionnaire as it would influence their answers!