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Title:

The Role of Passengers in the Safe Driving of Young Adults

Accession Number:

01658966

Record Type:

Component

Abstract:

The presence of young passengers has been identified as a critical factor in young drivers’ fatal crash involvement. Further, young adults are disproportionately over-represented in motor vehicle crashes; and risky driving has been identified as a major contributing factor to young driver crashes. While the negative influence of passengers on young drivers’ risk taking has been studied, there is little research on the positive and protective behaviors that young adults may display. The research aimed to develop a questionnaire on youth protective passenger responses. There were 326 young adult undergraduate students (16-25-year-olds) surveyed, 140 of whom reported that they had intervened in the previous 3-months to the survey. The authors identified three factors of youth passenger protective behaviors, Approach, a component capturing approaching the situation (or failing to), whereby intervening was likely undertaken by warning the driver or telling them not to drive as they are (in an unsafe manner). The second component contained items that dealt with clear speaking out and asking to get out of the car, and was named Speak Out and the final component, Friendship, reflected constructs that highlighted friends would ‘respect’ safety and not put each other at harm. Where active passenger intervening had been undertaken, they were reported to be effective in reducing the unsafe driving around three-quarters of the time. The current study sought to better understand young passengers’ experiences by developing a questionnaire, which could then also be used to better understand safe passenger behavior.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB30 Standing Committee on Operator Education and Regulation.

Report/Paper Numbers:

18-02331

Language:

English

Authors:

Buckley, Lisa
Watling, Hanna

Pagination:

9p

Publication Date:

2018

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

References (11) ; Tables

Subject Areas:

Highways; Passenger Transportation; Safety and Human Factors

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2018 Paper #18-02331

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Jan 8 2018 10:34AM