Driver behaviour: safe and unsafe drivers

Two groups of 50 car drivers were given a picture test, the shipley abstraction test and the maudsley personality inventory; these subjects also drove in their own cars around a 12 mile route under normal traffic conditions, accompanied by two observers who tape recorded their observations on certain aspects of the subjects' driving behaviour as they drove. One group of subjects consisted of drivers who had been convicted of careless driving; the other group consisted of drivers selected at random. Results showed that the following three items of driving behaviour (drive indices) were significantly different between the groups of drivers, with the 'careless' group having higher values than the 'random group' - risks taken, the ratio of overtaking to being overtaken and the occurrence of unnecessary manoeuvres.