Salāmat-i kār-i Īrān (May 2020)
Investigating the Relationship between Personality Dimensions and Driving Styles among Taxi Drivers in Tehran
Abstract
Background and aims: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), unfortunately, about 1.35 million people are killed in traffic accidents annually, and more than 16,000 are killed on Iranian roads, according to the National Forensics Organization. It is estimated that the third leading cause of death in 2020 will be road traffic crashes around the world. This has led traffic accidents and injuries to be considered a globally serious public management problem. Although the restrictions of urban settings appear to reduce accidents, the frequency of these events remains alarming. There are four elements that affect traffic collisions: road, vehicle, environment, and human factor - which plays a more prominent role than other elements. In this context, it is important to examine the behavior of urban taxi drivers, who constitute a significant portion of urban road users. Driving is a complex practice that is influenced by different variables such as age, gender, mentality, and health status. Driving behavior can be predicted by psychological factors such as attachment and personality. Personality have long been recognized as one of the major factors that are closely related to dangerous behaviors and traffic collisions. The results of many studies indicate that personality is associated with car accidents. For example, risky driving behavior is inversely related to friendliness, directly related to emotion-seeking, and inversely related to agreeableness and conscientiousness. High extraversion, low compliance, and low conscientiousness are also associated with neural and neural driving styles. Risky driving is also associated with high neuroticism, low compliance, and low conscientiousness. Therefore, it can be stated that there is a relationship between driving style and personality dimensions. It can be said that driving style is a type of behavior that is subordinate to personality traits and the assumption that personality affects driving has prompted many researchers to study the relationship between personality factors and driving style. The group of people who are most present on urban roads is taxi drivers who form a significant part of the urban driver community. However, few studies have so far been devoted to examining the driving behavior of taxi drivers. Investigating the relationship between personality and driving style of taxi drivers can provide a better understanding of their performance in specific traffic situations. Despite the importance of this issue, it has not been addressed in previous research. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the driving style of taxi drivers in Tehran city and their personality dimensions. Methods: The study population consisted of all taxi drivers working in taxi stations in Tehran. A total of 89 taxi drivers were randomly selected and were asked to complete the questionnaire. They were asked to complete a questionnaire that included three sections: demographic information, personality questionnaire and driving style questionnaire. Demographic information included questions such as age, education, marital status, and driving history per year. The method of completing the data was that a written questionnaire was provided to the driver and he was required to answer all questions carefully. Each questionnaire took about 10 minutes to complete. After data collection and structuring, IBM SPSS Statistics 24 software was used for data analysis. The 44-item Multidimensional Driving Style Inventory (MDSI) was used to explore the driving style of the subjects. The styles were classified into four categories: inattentive, anxious, nervous, and cautious. A six-point Likert scale (‘never’, ‘rarely’, ‘sometimes’, ‘usually’, ‘most often’, and ‘almost always’) was used to answer each item. The NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) was employed to assess the personality dimensions of individuals. This questionnaire consists of 60 questions that assess the personality of the subjects in terms of extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, and agreeableness. A five-point Likert scale (from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’) was adopted to respond to each item. Correlation analysis and stepwise regression were used to analyze the results. Using regression modeling, an attempt was made to discover a relationship that would predict driving styles by considering personality dimensions of taxi drivers. To this end, four regression models were used, each considering one driving style as the dependent variable. Besides, the five personality dimensions were regarded as predictor (independent) variables. Possible relationships between these variables were probed using stepwise regression. Results: The average age of drivers who completed the questionnaires was about 44 years, with a standard deviation of around 11 years. This indicates that the age distribution of participants was acceptable, such that all related age groups cooperated in filling out the two inventories. It was found that 6% of drivers had less than 4 years, 12% between 5-10 years, 27% between 11-15 years, 28% between 16-25 years, and 27% more than 26 years of driving experience. These figures illustrate the long driving history of the subjects and their professionalism. For the educational status of the questionnaires, five categories of "less than high school", "between high school and postgraduate", "bachelor", master "and" doctorate "were considered. The results showed that 41% had less than high school education, 40% between high school and postgraduate, 16% had a bachelorchr('39')s degree and 3% had a masterchr('39')s degree. The marital status of the participants showed that 15% of the individuals were single and 85% were married. The mean scores of drivers were moderate in terms of inattentiveness, anxiety, and nervousness, but high with respect to cautiousness. Concerning personality, the drivers scored higher in terms of conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness than openness and neuroticism. Of course, because it is a negative personality traits, the low score of neuroticism is desirable and positive. The results of correlation analysis demonstrated that inattentive driving style is negatively correlated with conscientiousness and agreeableness. By the same token, anxious driving style is negatively correlated with conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion, but positively correlated with neuroticism. Nervous driving style is similar to anxious driving style. However, the results of the cautious driving style are somehow opposite to the nervous and anxious driving styles; thus, this style is positively correlated with conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion. In other words, the personality dimensions of conscientiousness and agreeableness are inversely correlated with unsafe driving styles (inattentive, anxious, and nervous) but directly related to the cautious driving style. This paper also used regression modeling to explore the relationships of variables and attempted to establish a relationship to predict driving style using taxi driverschr('39') personality dimensions. For this purpose, four regression models were considered, in each of which one of the driving styles was considered as dependent variable and five personality dimensions were considered as predictor or independent variables. In all models, conscientiousness entered the regression equations in the first step. The dimensions of agreeableness and openness that came in the second step of the nervous and reckless driving styles, respectively, have a relative impact on driving styles. But since extroversion and neuroticism have not entered into any of the regression equations, it can be concluded that these variables have no effect on the driving style of taxi drivers in the presence of conscientious personality dimension. Therefore, the results of regression equations also indicated that conscientiousness is the main characteristic which predicts one’s driving style. In addition, the negative coefficient of conscientiousness on anxious, nervous, and inattentive driving styles displays its inverse relationship with these styles, while its positive coefficient on cautious driving style suggests its direct relationship with this style. These results also corroborate the findings obtained via correlation analysis of these variables. The same result is also evident in the correlation between agreeableness and driving styles. Since conscientiousness and agreeableness are positive personality traits, their negative association with unsafe driving styles (anxious, nervous, and inattentive) and their positive relationship with the safe driving style (cautious) are reasonable. It can be concluded, therefore, that the scoring of different driving styles among taxi drivers can be predicted only by the personality dimensions of conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness. Since each personality dimension in the Neo-Short Form Questionnaire has 12 questions, while using the NEO Personality Questionnaire we have an estimate of the taxi driverschr('39') driving style with only 36 questions (conscientious, agreement and openness) Driving style scores can be predicted. Conclusion: Using the results of this study, urban transportation policymakers of Tehran could make more appropriate decisions to improve the behavior of taxi drivers. The prevalence of low conscientiousness and agreeableness among taxi drivers, as people who spend a lot of time transporting citizens, is a matter of great concern and needs to be taken seriously. In this context, it is recommended that a research group be set up to examine more precisely the cause of this problem and to organize appropriate courses or consider incentive programs for resolving this issue. Changing this behavior requires constant cultivation. Long-term strategic plans need to be developed for this purpose. Another suggestion is that taxi drivers be screened periodically (e.g. annually) with regard to their personality traits. Since it is possible to predict the driving style of taxi drivers by means of the obtained regression relations and 36 questions, it is proposed to require drivers with unsafe driving styles to participate in tailored educational programs.
