SELF-REPORTED ATTITUDE TOWARDS SPEEDING AND ITS POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCESIN 5 DIFFERENT ROAD CONTEXTS

Driving above the permitted speed limit is a common violation on the r oads of Great Britain. Moreover, speeding is associated with negative consequences in the form of damage, injury and fatal road traffic acci dents. The aim of this study was to assess, by means of self-report, t he prevalence of this social problem across five different contexts: a residential road, a busy shopping street, a dual carriageway, a windi ng country road, and a motorway. The extent to which speeding was perc eived to be associated with negative consequences was also assessed. R esults suggest that most drivers make judgements about the type of roa d on which they are driving and the degree of speeding that is accepta ble, and that their intentions to speed vary accordingly. Some drivers reported a consistent intention to speed, however, and these people w ere characterized by greater general deviance on the road (e.g. high v iolation score), rather than by a stronger tendency to underestimate t he negative consequences. In general, however, younger people and thos e with less regard for negative consequences reported stronger intenti ons to speed. These results are discussed with reference to strategies for addressing the problem of speeding. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons , Ltd.