Tacit Driving Knowledge, Emotional Intelligence, Stressful Events and Accident Risk: Traffic Safety Implications

Abstract

We developed two tacit driving knowledge scales to investigate whether safer drivers can more accurately assess risks associated with a variety of driving conditions including road hazards and the driver's internal or emotional state. The tests were administered with a battery of conventional cognitive tests, personality instruments and situational variables chosen to predict accident involvement. The correlations between the tacit driving knowledge measures and the accident criteria ranged up to .22 (p<.001), and compared favorably to correlations between the accident criteria and the conventional measures. Odds ratios for the tacit driving knowledge tests show that low and average scoring participants had 5 and 2.3 times as many at-fault accidents as high scoring individuals. The data also indicate that stress, fatigue and illness elevate accident risk. The analyses demonstrate the importance of emotional and tacit knowledge and provide specific recommendations to improve driver safety.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 28, 1999
Accession Number
ADA365265

Entities

People

  • Daniel E. Martin
  • Emma L. Gregory
  • Gina J. Medsker
  • Peter J. Legree

Organizations

  • U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accidents
  • Army Personnel
  • Databases
  • Education
  • Factor Analysis
  • Hazards
  • Human Behavior
  • Information Science
  • Military Research
  • Motor Vehicle Accidents
  • Personality
  • Psychology
  • Regression Analysis
  • Risk
  • Social Sciences
  • Standards
  • Surveys

Readers

  • Aviation Safety Risk Assessment.
  • Organizational Process Management (OPM).
  • Psychometric Testing or Psychological Assessment.