CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN DRIVERS SELF-ASSESSMENTS OF THEIR PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR AND SAFETY SKILLS - AUSTRALIANS AND FINNS

Australian (N = 201) and Finnish (N = 203) drivers completed Type-A an d Sense of Coherence questionnaires, Driver Behaviour Inventory, Drive r Social Desirability Scale, self-reported number of accidents, penalt ies and driving speed and the Driver Skill Inventory (DSI), which meas ures driver's self-assessment of his/her perceptual-motor and safety s kills. The English version of the DSI had the same factor structure an d reliability as the original Finnish version and is, therefore, a via ble instrument for measuring drivers' self-assessment of their percept ual-motor and safety skills in English-speaking countries. Hierarchica l regression analyses showed that the number of accidents and penaltie s as well as the self-reported driving speed were predicted by safety skills whereas perceptual-motor skills predicted the number of penalti es. Perceptual-motor skills were positively related to life-time milea ge, being male, driving aggression and alertness, and sense of coheren ce, but negatively to dislike of driving and age. Safety skills were p redicted by impression management, nationality, driving aggression and alertness. Results suggest that drivers with strong trust of their pe rceptual-motor skills have an emotional attitude to driving and overes timate their driving abilities, but drivers emphasising safety skills have a matter-of-fact attitude to driving. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science L td. All rights reserved.