Drivers' speed choice: an in-depth study

This report presents the results of a follow-up study to a large-scale questionnaire survey that investigated the effects of a variety of demographic and psychological factors on car drivers' speed choices, as measured by a single, unobtrusive observation. The conclusions of the large-scale study rely implicitly on a number of assumptions, related to the experimental design. The objectives of the present study were to examine the extent to which these assumptions can be justified, and to provide further insight into the process of speed choice when the dependent variable is speed on a test drive. A subset of the original sample took part in test drives in their own cars, and in addition a number of measures were taken in the laboratory. Results are presented which relate speeds on the test drives to those observed in the previous on-road survey, and examine those characteristics of individual drivers that influence both speed and accident liability. (A)