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How is the older road users’ perception of risk constructed?
Transportation Research Part F 14 (2011) 222–228
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How is the older road users’ perception of risk constructed? Anu Siren a,⇑, Marlene Rishøj Kjær b,1 a b
Department of Transport, Technical University of Denmark, Bygningstorvet 116 vest, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark Office for Traffic Safety, Danish Road Directorate, Niels Juels Gade 13, 1022 Copenhagen K, Denmark
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 17 April 2009 Received in revised form 12 October 2010 Accepted 6 January 2011
Keywords: Risk perception Older drivers Subjective risk
a b s t r a c t As the driver population is ageing rapidly in industrialized countries, questions about older drivers’ risk perception, self-awareness and judgement have gained a lot of interest. Older drivers have generally been thought to have more realistic risk perception, which in turn is reflected in their driving behaviour, but there is no unequivocal proof for this in the research literature. The present study aims to help to understand the risk perception of this group by studying how older persons construct their perceptions about risk and safety. The study uses material from focus groups conducted with Danish senior citizens. The material is analysed with qualitative methods. The findings of the study indicate that older persons in this study tended to perceive risk as something external (e.g., bad infrastructure) that can sometimes be managed by internal means (e.g., skills). The results also indicate that while the risk perception and driving behaviour of older persons are connected, the connection is perhaps different from what has previously been suggested. The findings of the present study suggest that older drivers might self-regulate their driving, not as a result of perceiving themselves to have limitations but by perceiving other road users behaving dangerously. While the self-regulation practices adapted by the participants may have been responses to age-related changes, they were constructed as practices based on the driver’s skills, experience and preferences, and presented as responses to external factors. The present study offers a better understanding of the way older drivers perceive traffic risks and gives methodological openings for studying the risk perception and mobility choices of older people. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction 1.1. Older drivers’ risk perception and self-regulatory behaviour As the driver population is ageing rapidly in industrialized countries, questions about older drivers’ risk perception and self-awareness have gained a lot of interest. Older persons’ awareness of their risks and a realistic self-assessment about their fitness to drive have been considered as crucial factors when assessing the general risk of this group of drivers. Nevertheless, the findings have been equivocal. In general, older drivers have been found to have less biased self-assessments than younger drivers when comparing themselves to their peers (Holland, 1993; Matthews & Moran, 1986; Sivak, Soler, & Tränkle, 1989b), and the tendency to perceive and interpret traffic situations as more risky, and to take fewer risks, has been found to increase in the older age groups
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +45 45256517; fax: +45 45936533. 1
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Siren), [email protected] (M.R. Kjær). Tel.: +45 72443463; fax: +45 33931922.
1369-8478/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.trf.2011.01.002
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(Finn & Bragg, 1986; Sivak, Soler, & Tränkle, 1989a, 1989b). On the other hand, a study by Andersson and Lundborg (2006) showed no differences between older and younger drivers in assessing the likelihood of involvement in fatal crashes. When it comes to driving behaviour and habits, older drivers are commonly thought to show good judgement by using strategies of self-regulation by avoiding difficult driving conditions, such as rush hour, darkness, and poor road-surface conditions (e.g., Brouwer, Rothengatter, & Wolffelaar, 1988; Chipman, MacGregor, Smiley, & Lee-Gosselin, 1993; Gallo, Rebok, & Lesikar, 1999; Hakamies-Blomqvist, 1994a; Kostuniuk & Molnar, 2008; Langford & Koppel, 2006). Older drivers have also been shown to have a defensive driving style, that is, a tendency to compensate for other road users’ mistakes (Langford & Koppel, 2006). It is, however, yet unclear to what extent the self-regulating behaviour is related to active compensation or regulation rather than a mere preference (e.g., Charlton et al., 2006). Furthermore, practically nothing is known about how this modification of behaviour is connected to drivers’ perception of risk. Holland and Rabbitt (1992) found older drivers to be rather unaware of their sensory and cognitive deficits when assessing themselves as drivers, and Baldock, Mathias, McLean, and Berndt (2006) found the correlation between older drivers’ driving ability and self-regulatory behaviour to be only a weak one. On the other hand, several studies have found functional decline, lack of confidence and self-reported difficulty in driving to be related to voluntary reduction of driving in older drivers (Donorfio, Mohyde, Coughlin, & D’Ambrosio, 2008; Kostuniuk & Molnar, 2008; Lyman, McGwin, & Sims, 2001; Rimmö & Hakamies-Blomqvist, 2002), indicating a link between self-reflection and driving patterns. 1.2. Subjective risk The concept of subjective risk – that is, the individual’s own perception of the risk – is sometimes used as an indicator of an individual’s comprehension of the threat the individual is subjected to when operating in a given environment, such as the traffic system. It is generally accepted that people’s judgement of risk is subject to bias (Rafaely, Meyer, Zilberman-Sandler, & Viener, 2006). Nevertheless, it is commonly thought that a mismatch between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ risk causes feeling of false security and, in addition, undesirable behaviour in traffic, such as unnecessary risk-taking, reckless driving, and an inability to critically assess own driving performance (e.g., Cohn, Macfarlane, Yanez, & Imai, 1995; Machin & Sankeya, 2008). In the same vein, previous research has tried to document a correlation between attributions of risk (either internal or external) and safe driving performance as an outcome (Miller & Mulligan, 2002; Ozkan & Lajunen, 2005), although the prediction power of the models has been rather modest. Based on the common traffic psychological understanding of risk perception, the self-regulation and carefulness of older drivers are, in general, thought to originate from their more realistic risk perception and a better match between subjective and objective risk (e.g., Monterde, 2004; Rafaely et al., 2006). However, there is no clear evidence that this indeed is the mechanism, mainly owing to the complexity of the self-regulatory behaviour (see D’Ambrosio, Donorfio, Coughlin, Mohyde, & Meyer, 2008; Donorfio et al., 2008), as well as the challenges in comparing and connecting subjective and objective risk. 1.3. Connecting subjective and objective risk In order to state something about the relation between subjective and objective risk, these concepts should be comparable in a meaningful way. There are, however, certain related challenges. Firstly, the concepts tend to be very different in nature. While objective risk is usually operationalized as accidents per exposure, that is, as something that has already happened on the population level, subjective risk is an individual prediction of something that is possibly going to happen. In addition, while objective risk is risk on a group level, subjective risk is an estimate on an individual level. General risk can be determined and assessed rather easily on a population level, but as accidents on an individual level are rare and multidetermined (see Hakamies-Blomqvist, 1994b, 2006), an accurate estimate is impossible to give, whether based on ‘subjective’ or ‘objective’ means of determination. Secondly, while there are various ways of operationalizing objective risk, the operationalization of the subjective risk is challenging. Objective risk can be expressed with a simple formula, that is, accidents per exposure, but using the same numerical expression for subjective risk is problematic. Not only is it difficult for people to reliably and quantitatively (numerically) estimate the probability for such rare occurrences as crashes (e.g., Rumar, 1988), but the assessments are also likely to be characterized by social psychological mechanisms, such as emotions, attitudes, perceived control, and conceptions of knowledge (Sjöberg, Moen, & Rundmo, 2004). There is wide discussion about the methodological challenges of studying risk perception and whether the issue should be approached by quantitative or qualitative means (see e.g., Sjöberg, 2000). 1.4. Aims of the present study Even if we assume that older drivers’ subjective risk has an influence on their actual driving behaviour the choices they make as drivers, given the methodological and conceptual challenges, claiming that the mechanism would include some mental calculation and comparison between subjective and the objective risk does not make a convincing case. Neither does it seem relevant to just compare older drivers’ objective and subjective risk in order to find out how good a match there is between the two.
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Rather, a better understanding of older drivers’ subjective risk perception and the ways it is related to their driving behaviour is needed. Understanding older drivers’ risk perceptions and the way they influence actual behaviour can help us to tailor better solutions and interventions for serving this growing road-user group. In the present study, older road users’ risk perception was studied using qualitative methods, in order to understand how older drivers construct their perceptions about risk and safety.
2. Materials and methods In the present study, textual interview material from focus group discussions with older Danish persons was used. Focus groups are a common way of collecting empirical material within the qualitative research tradition, and their use in research has increased over the past decades (Krueger & Casey, 2000). Although qualitative methods, in general, are applied relatively rarely to the field of traffic research, they are adequate, especially when attempting to conceptualize a previously unknown research issue, or when attempting to gain an in-depth understanding of certain phenomenon (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). The four focus groups were held with 4–7 participants per each group. Two of the groups were all-male (with participants aged 76–84 and 64–72, respectively) while two comprised both women and men (with participants aged 64–72 and 64–79, respectively). The mean age of the participants was 74 years and the median was 75 years. The participants were recruited from various senior citizen activities arranged by senior citizen associations, such as older driver training courses, handicraft courses and folk-dancing classes. All participants received an invitation letter explaining the scope of the research, giving the opportunity to volunteer. Prior to participation, the participants filled in a short questionnaire mapping certain background variables. By assessing this background information, it can be summarized that all of the participants lived in urbanized areas with good access to public transport (train and/or bus), and they all had an overall good functional status (this was not separately assessed but is based on self-reports). All of the participants had a driving licence and drove regularly. As comes to other socio-economic background variables, the groups were rather homogeneous. It should be noted that, in general, the differences related to economic, health or housing resources are very small in Denmark (all residents are covered by health insurance, for example). All the groups followed the same interview structure and were led by the same moderator. The themes that were brought to focus in the groups were related to mobility and safety. The specific themes were: (1) safety issues as a road user (all modes); (2) safety issues when driving; (3) specific situations that are safe or unsafe. The themes were dealt with from both the individual’s point of view (own experience) and on a group level (older road users in general, as a group). The moderator used the same framing of question in all the groups when introducing the themes to the discussion. The length of the discussions was 1–2 h, and they were videotaped and transcribed verbatim. The transcribed material was analysed in two phases. First, a content analysis was performed, in order to structure the material and to identify interesting emerging patterns from the material. In the content analysis, the content of the discussions was themed and nine categories (some with subcategories) were derived. We paid attention to the reliability and validity of the categorization by means of independent theming by both of the authors. The categorizations were found to be compatible. In addition to the derived categories, the number of instances belonging to each category was recorded in order to illustrate the quantitative proportions of the different themes appearing in the material. After the content analysis, we focused more specifically on the construction of risk. Here, two interesting and relevant patterns emerged and in the second part of the analysis, these themes were selected for further analysis. A general social constructionist approach was used. That is, the analysis focused on the meanings constructed by language use. Hence, in the analysis we focused on not only what the participants said, but also how they chose to say it. Those parts of the focus group discussions used as excerpts in the present paper have been translated from Danish into English. In the excerpts, the moderator is indicated by ‘mod.’ and the interviewees with pseudonyms followed by their age. In the transcripts, pauses in conversations are marked with ellipsis and wherever a word or words have been removed to increase clarity (. . .) has been added.
3. Results and interpretation 3.1. The content analysis The content analysis served as a way of structuring the material, and a total of nine categories were identified in the content analysis. These categories and the number of instances belonging to each category are presented in Table 1. The most common theme in the discussions was the twofold theme of factors contributing to risk in traffic, which could further be divided into external (239 instances) and internal (152 instances) factors. Discussions about self-regulation, generational conflict, older drivers as ‘others’, older driver course, licence renewal, alternative transport modes/multimodality, and gender were more marginal, but clearly formed their own thematic categories. After mapping the themes that were prominent in the discussions in general, the focus was set specifically on the participants’ construction of risk. Two emerging patterns were central in this context, and these were chosen for further analysis. These patterns were somewhat cross-sectional over the thematic categories identified in the content analysis, and were the
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Table 1 Thematic categories derived in the content analysis and the number of instances in each category. Thematic category
Number of instances
External factors contributing to risk in traffic – Infrastructure, traffic volume – Traffic rules /legislations – Behaviour of other road users – Road conditions (e.g., weather, daylight) – Passive safety in vehicles
239 73 27 91 20 28
Internal factors contributing to risk in traffic – Cognitive and physical factors – Stress, emotions – Knowing one’s vehicle – Skills and rule compliance – Familiar vs. unfamiliar places
152 35 21 14 61 21
Self-regulatory behaviour Generational conflict Older drivers as ‘‘others’’ License renewal procedures Alternative transport modes/multimodality Gender issues Older driver courses/driver education
53 29 32 31 25 24 19
participants’ construction of the group ‘older drivers’ and the construction of factors contributing to risk in traffic. In the following Sections 3.2 and 3.3, these patterns are analysed further. 3.2. Construction of the category ‘‘older drivers’’ An interesting feature of the discussions was the way participants constructed the category ‘older drivers’, a group to which they also could be seen to belong. In the analysis, we focused particularly on how the participants discussed risk in relation to age and ageing. The construction of the category ‘older drivers’ was twofold. Partly, the participants constructed themselves as part of the group. This was done by choosing to use the pronoun ‘we’ when referring to the older drivers, and by choosing the pronoun ‘them’ when referring to road users of a younger age, or by describing generational conflicts in traffic, for example. The following excerpt illustrates participants’ responses in one group after a brief introductory discussion on the scope of the groups: Anders (76): I thought your research institute had been tasked to examine us because somebody is unsatisfied with older drivers and thinks we drive poorly . . . Mod.: No, this is to examine . . . [is interrupted by Anders] Anders: But it could be that someone has complained. Mod.: Well I don’t get those complaints. Anders: Well that’s good. But it could have originated from something like that. Mod.: I wouldn’t know what’s going on at the ministry [of transport]. Jens (80): They wouldn’t dare to complain about us! Anders: Oh, it’s possible. We are not as fast as we used to be. It is possible that someone has got irritated with that. Here, the participants (especially Anders) construct the group and the group solidarity through a generational conflict. Often, when the participants chose to construct themselves as part of the group ‘‘older drivers’’, this was done by describing the positive features of growing old, and the positive impact ageing has on driving performance; considerate behaviour, choice of safer speeds and extensive experience were mentioned. Often it was noted, however, that this may create conflict with other road users, who generally were constructed as persons and groups with unsafe travel practices. In the following excerpt, a male participant noted the following about the fellow road users: I would also say that the young drivers, mostly younger drivers and maybe also truck drivers, drive in a way I would call risky. Like when I drive at 110 km/h, just as one should with a safety margin of 100 metres, there aren’t many who obey that. Trucks and others drive closer [to me] than that. And it means I have to slow down because their safety margin is too short for the speed and then eventually they get upset with that and overtake me. And then I have the safety margin again to speed up. But although there often is a speed limit of 130 km/h, I rarely drive faster than 110 km/h. (Christian, 67) When constructing older drivers group in this way, the participants described behaviour that is traditionally perceived as compensatory or self-regulatory behaviour. However, the interpretation of the motives for this behaviour was untraditional in the sense that the modifications of driving were seen as reflecting good driving skills and consideration, rather than experiencing problems in traffic.
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On many occasions, however, the participants constructed themselves as not belonging to the ‘older drivers’ group. This was done, for example, by choosing to use the pronoun ‘them’ when referring to older drivers, or explicitly stating ‘when I become old’. An illustration of this discourse is provided in the following excerpt, where Lene (79 years), Maren (75 years), Vibeke (64 years) and Ruth (75 years) are discussing the driving style of older drivers: Lene (79): Maybe many older people drive too carefully. Maren (75): Yes, that can be irritating Vibeke (64): One can surely drive carefully without driving too slow. There is a difference. If one is careful in a safe way. . . Ruth (75): Yeah, you’re right. Maren: But it is these oldies we are talking about. Vibeke: . . . with a felt hat. Ruth: Yes, we should watch out for them! When older drivers were constructed as ‘the others’, compensatory and self-regulatory behaviour, such as driving at slower speeds, was interpreted as more traditional compensation, that is, behaviour reflecting the deterioration of driving skills and problems in driving. In general, the older road users participating in the study constructed themselves as considerate and experienced drivers. To some extent they attributed the ‘older drivers’ group with the same qualities – namely, when the participants categorized themselves as part of the group. Any age-related risk was, however, externalized in the discussions, and the negative aspects of driver ageing were only mentioned when the participants were categorizing themselves outside the older drivers group. 3.3. Construction of risk: internal and external factors A notable and interesting feature in the discussions was that the participants often chose not to talk directly about their own safety or risks. In order to grasp the participants’ perception of risk, we focused on the factors that the participants saw as contributing to the risk in traffic. We looked especially on where and how the participants placed the locus of control related to risk and safety issues; that is, how they talked about the different factors contributing to risks in traffic, and about the possibilities of influencing and controlling this risk. We found a distinction between placing the control on the individual and placing it on external factors. When the control was placed on external factors that influence traffic safety, the participants constructed risk as a result of the infrastructure, other road users’ behaviour and legislation (or the lack of it). Quite often the risk dependent on the external factors was not seen as a significant source of stress, as these factors were seen as something beyond the individual’s reach. The risk in these cases was constructed as a constant, uncontrollable factor ‘out there’, something not affecting the respondents’ behaviour or their travel choices. As a male participant in one of the groups put it: I don’t feel safe in traffic. Not that I am nervous and shaky – I have been a good driver for many years and drive pretty well, if I may say so. But my fellow road users are not always good drivers. I joke with my wife [when leaving home]: If I come home again. When leaving home, I can get hit on the road and then it is all over. So I am very aware of the risk of modern traffic. (Søren, 70) We interpret the deterministic view of ‘if it happens, it happens’ as a strategy to deal with the fact that one might be injured or killed when entering the traffic. By constructing the risk as something the individual has no means of affecting is a way to overcome and avoid the stress related to the aspiration to control one’s life. In many cases there was, however, a notable striving for control over the situation and shifting the locus of control from the external to the internal factors. This included regulation of behaviour; driving carefully in order to compensate for others’ (potential) mistakes or choosing lower speeds or the safest vehicle types. The following excerpt from a female participant’s description illustrates this: (. . .) for example, if I have right of way, I tend to stop and wait. I’d rather be a bit careful than just storm ahead although I’d have the right to do that. Even if the other has to give way it is better to be careful. It won’t help if you were right if you get run over. (Vibeke, 64) In general, the behaviour of shifting the locus of control resembled what commonly is called compensatory self-regulation. Defensive driving style, compensating for others’ mistakes, and choosing lower speeds and less complex traffic environments, are all means for the individual to increase their control over the risk. When risk was perceived as controllable, it was constructed as being dependent on and regulated by individual features, such as individual competence, skill, knowledge, experience, personality and behavioural patterns, and attitudes. This is illustrated in the following excerpt: Anders (76): The statistics show that it is rarely older persons that cause road accidents, but young people aged 18 to 30 Aage (75): They are always in a hell of a hurry. . .
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Anders: And they are the ones being hurt in accidents and lying in hospitals and having to go to rehabilitation. It is rarely our age group that is involved in accidents. . . and it is because we are careful in what we do and we know the forces we are dealing with [when driving]. Overall, it should be noted that, notably, the participants constructed risk to be dependent less often on internal factors than on external factors (cf. Table 1). It is also noteworthy that when internal factors influencing safety were mentioned, they were predominately factors positively influencing safety, such as good skills and judgement. On the contrary, the external factors influencing safety that were mentioned were predominately those with negative impact on safety, such as the risky behaviour of others or unsuccessful traffic solutions.
4. Discussion and conclusions In the present study, the aim was to examine how older road users construct their perception of risk. Understanding older drivers’ perception of risk and how it is constructed is relevant, given that we assume that the way older drivers perceive risk in traffic has implications for their driving behaviour and the choices they make as drivers. There were two main findings. First, the results indicate that older people in this study tended to perceive risk as something external (e.g., bad infrastructure) that can sometimes be managed through internal means (e.g., own skills). Risk perception was greatly related to the individual’s strategy to manage risk. Risk in traffic was constructed as being ‘out there’, and dependent on external factors, such as others’ behaviour and infrastructure. Risk constructed in this way was managed and controlled by individual skills and characteristics. On the conceptual level, this implies that subjective perception of risk is a psychological construct, rather than a quantitative estimate, and related to the perceived controllability. This is in line with previous findings that have indicated that risk assessments are related to the (perceived) controllability of the risk (Weinstein, 1989). Understanding risk perception as a psychological mechanism connected to the individual perception of control may well open new possibilities for further studies aiming to conceptualize subjective risk perception. Second, the findings from the present study shed light on the conceptual connection between risk perception and driving behaviour – including compensation – of older drivers. The findings imply that the connection between the two is more complicated than often suggested. The results did not imply that older divers perceive their own individual characteristics, such as age-related changes in health and functionality, as risk factors. The participants described self-regulation and compensation in their driving, but interpreted this behaviour as a response to the external risk factors (such as others’ behaviour) rather than a reflection of their own actual risk or abilities. While the participants’ self-regulation practices may have been responses to age-related changes, they were constructed as practices based on the driver’s skill, experience and preferences and, most of all, presented as responses to external factors. As Donorfio and her associates (2008) note, when people are younger and in better health, ‘self-regulation is a method to cope with driving conditions, external situations, and the mistakes and bad habits of others’. Apparently the participants of the present study did not yet feel that ‘driving had become work’ to compensate internal shortcomings in ability and confidence in driving (Donorfio et al., 2008). The findings of the present study did not support the conception of older drivers being overtly aware of age-related changes as potential risk factors, or having particularly unbiased perception of risk. Within social psychology, it is commonly thought that self-serving biases are a natural part of human social cognition (Campbell & Sedikides, 1999; Leary, 2007; Miller & Ross, 1975). Also, older drivers seem to have certain self-serving biases in their attributions. These might serve as cognitive adaptation and coping in response to the demands of the traffic environment. In our opinion, the findings of the present study do, however, not indicate any reason to be concerned about older drivers’ or road users’ judgement of risk in traffic. Even if their considerate driving style is not a result of active, conscious compensation strategies and ‘less illusory risk perception’ as suggested by the earlier literature, the fact is still that older drivers are safe drivers with the lowest accident risk of all age groups (e.g., Langford, Methorst, & Hakamies-Blomqvist, 2006). Much more concern should be addressed towards the finding that older persons seem to experience many risks and threats in the traffic environment. This may lead to a lack of confidence in driving and overestimation of the risks traffic, further leading to a loss of mobility, which, judged by the scientific evidence, has far more severe negative consequences than a slightly biased assessment of risk. In this light, the self-serving biases of older drivers may have an important role in maintaining confidence in traffic (cf. Leary, 2007). The present study’s data consisted of focus group interviews and qualitative methods were used for analysing the data. The participants were a purposive sample, and thus not representative in the sense that representativeness is traditionally understood within the quantitative paradigm. In qualitative research, the possible selectiveness of a sample is, however, not crucial, as representativeness in quantitative sense is never possible to achieve, nor is it desired. The aim is rather to have material and analysis that show good credibility. Although the participants varied in their chronological age, all they held a good functional status enabling them to lead a very active life style. Thus, the findings might be somewhat different from a population with a poorer functional health status, as noted earlier. On the other hand, the majority of the older driver population – both now and in the future – will consist of senior citizens with active life styles and good functional status. The present study presents interesting findings that were produced through a convincing qualitative analysis, and provides a better understanding of the logic of older drivers’ risk perceptions. This will be of relevance when tailoring inter-
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Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction? Psychological Bulletin, 82, 213–225. Miller, R. L., & Mulligan, R. D. (2002). Terror management: The effects of mortality salience and locus of control on risk-taking behaviors. Personality and Individual Differences, 33, 1203–1214. Monterde, H. (2004). Factorial structure of recklessness: To what extent are older drivers different? Journal of Safety Research, 35, 329–335. Özkan, T., & Lajunen, T. (2005). Multidimensional Traffic Locus of Control Scale (T-LOC): factor structure and relationship to risky driving. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 533–545. Rafaely, V., Meyer, J., Zilberman-Sandler, I., & Viener, S. (2006). Perception of traffic risks for older and younger adults. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 38, 1231–1236. Rimmö, P.-A., & Hakamies-Blomqvist, L. (2002). Older drivers’ aberrant driving behaviour, impaired activity, and health as reasons for self-imposed driving limitations. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 5, 47–62. Rumar, K. (1988). Collective risk but individual safety. Ergonomics, 31, 507–518. Sivak, M., Soler, J., & Tränkle, U. (1989a). Cross-cultural differences in driver risk-taking. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 21, 363–369. Sivak, M., Soler, J., & Tränkle, U. (1989b). Cross-cultural differences in driver self-assessment. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 21, 371–375. Sjöberg, L. (2000). The methodology of risk perception research. Quality and Quantity, 34, 407–418. Sjöberg, L., Moen, B.-E., & Rundmo, L. (2004). Explaining risk perception. An evaluation of the psychometric paradigm in risk perception research. Rotunde Publikasjoner no. 84. Trondheim, Norway: Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Psychology. Weinstein, N. (1989). Optimistic biases about personal risks. Science, 246, 1232–1233.
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Transportation Research Part F journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/trf
How is the older road users’ perception of risk constructed? Anu Siren a,⇑, Marlene Rishøj Kjær b,1 a b
Department of Transport, Technical University of Denmark, Bygningstorvet 116 vest, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark Office for Traffic Safety, Danish Road Directorate, Niels Juels Gade 13, 1022 Copenhagen K, Denmark
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 17 April 2009 Received in revised form 12 October 2010 Accepted 6 January 2011
Keywords: Risk perception Older drivers Subjective risk
a b s t r a c t As the driver population is ageing rapidly in industrialized countries, questions about older drivers’ risk perception, self-awareness and judgement have gained a lot of interest. Older drivers have generally been thought to have more realistic risk perception, which in turn is reflected in their driving behaviour, but there is no unequivocal proof for this in the research literature. The present study aims to help to understand the risk perception of this group by studying how older persons construct their perceptions about risk and safety. The study uses material from focus groups conducted with Danish senior citizens. The material is analysed with qualitative methods. The findings of the study indicate that older persons in this study tended to perceive risk as something external (e.g., bad infrastructure) that can sometimes be managed by internal means (e.g., skills). The results also indicate that while the risk perception and driving behaviour of older persons are connected, the connection is perhaps different from what has previously been suggested. The findings of the present study suggest that older drivers might self-regulate their driving, not as a result of perceiving themselves to have limitations but by perceiving other road users behaving dangerously. While the self-regulation practices adapted by the participants may have been responses to age-related changes, they were constructed as practices based on the driver’s skills, experience and preferences, and presented as responses to external factors. The present study offers a better understanding of the way older drivers perceive traffic risks and gives methodological openings for studying the risk perception and mobility choices of older people. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction 1.1. Older drivers’ risk perception and self-regulatory behaviour As the driver population is ageing rapidly in industrialized countries, questions about older drivers’ risk perception and self-awareness have gained a lot of interest. Older persons’ awareness of their risks and a realistic self-assessment about their fitness to drive have been considered as crucial factors when assessing the general risk of this group of drivers. Nevertheless, the findings have been equivocal. In general, older drivers have been found to have less biased self-assessments than younger drivers when comparing themselves to their peers (Holland, 1993; Matthews & Moran, 1986; Sivak, Soler, & Tränkle, 1989b), and the tendency to perceive and interpret traffic situations as more risky, and to take fewer risks, has been found to increase in the older age groups
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +45 45256517; fax: +45 45936533. 1
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Siren), [email protected] (M.R. Kjær). Tel.: +45 72443463; fax: +45 33931922.
1369-8478/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.trf.2011.01.002
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(Finn & Bragg, 1986; Sivak, Soler, & Tränkle, 1989a, 1989b). On the other hand, a study by Andersson and Lundborg (2006) showed no differences between older and younger drivers in assessing the likelihood of involvement in fatal crashes. When it comes to driving behaviour and habits, older drivers are commonly thought to show good judgement by using strategies of self-regulation by avoiding difficult driving conditions, such as rush hour, darkness, and poor road-surface conditions (e.g., Brouwer, Rothengatter, & Wolffelaar, 1988; Chipman, MacGregor, Smiley, & Lee-Gosselin, 1993; Gallo, Rebok, & Lesikar, 1999; Hakamies-Blomqvist, 1994a; Kostuniuk & Molnar, 2008; Langford & Koppel, 2006). Older drivers have also been shown to have a defensive driving style, that is, a tendency to compensate for other road users’ mistakes (Langford & Koppel, 2006). It is, however, yet unclear to what extent the self-regulating behaviour is related to active compensation or regulation rather than a mere preference (e.g., Charlton et al., 2006). Furthermore, practically nothing is known about how this modification of behaviour is connected to drivers’ perception of risk. Holland and Rabbitt (1992) found older drivers to be rather unaware of their sensory and cognitive deficits when assessing themselves as drivers, and Baldock, Mathias, McLean, and Berndt (2006) found the correlation between older drivers’ driving ability and self-regulatory behaviour to be only a weak one. On the other hand, several studies have found functional decline, lack of confidence and self-reported difficulty in driving to be related to voluntary reduction of driving in older drivers (Donorfio, Mohyde, Coughlin, & D’Ambrosio, 2008; Kostuniuk & Molnar, 2008; Lyman, McGwin, & Sims, 2001; Rimmö & Hakamies-Blomqvist, 2002), indicating a link between self-reflection and driving patterns. 1.2. Subjective risk The concept of subjective risk – that is, the individual’s own perception of the risk – is sometimes used as an indicator of an individual’s comprehension of the threat the individual is subjected to when operating in a given environment, such as the traffic system. It is generally accepted that people’s judgement of risk is subject to bias (Rafaely, Meyer, Zilberman-Sandler, & Viener, 2006). Nevertheless, it is commonly thought that a mismatch between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ risk causes feeling of false security and, in addition, undesirable behaviour in traffic, such as unnecessary risk-taking, reckless driving, and an inability to critically assess own driving performance (e.g., Cohn, Macfarlane, Yanez, & Imai, 1995; Machin & Sankeya, 2008). In the same vein, previous research has tried to document a correlation between attributions of risk (either internal or external) and safe driving performance as an outcome (Miller & Mulligan, 2002; Ozkan & Lajunen, 2005), although the prediction power of the models has been rather modest. Based on the common traffic psychological understanding of risk perception, the self-regulation and carefulness of older drivers are, in general, thought to originate from their more realistic risk perception and a better match between subjective and objective risk (e.g., Monterde, 2004; Rafaely et al., 2006). However, there is no clear evidence that this indeed is the mechanism, mainly owing to the complexity of the self-regulatory behaviour (see D’Ambrosio, Donorfio, Coughlin, Mohyde, & Meyer, 2008; Donorfio et al., 2008), as well as the challenges in comparing and connecting subjective and objective risk. 1.3. Connecting subjective and objective risk In order to state something about the relation between subjective and objective risk, these concepts should be comparable in a meaningful way. There are, however, certain related challenges. Firstly, the concepts tend to be very different in nature. While objective risk is usually operationalized as accidents per exposure, that is, as something that has already happened on the population level, subjective risk is an individual prediction of something that is possibly going to happen. In addition, while objective risk is risk on a group level, subjective risk is an estimate on an individual level. General risk can be determined and assessed rather easily on a population level, but as accidents on an individual level are rare and multidetermined (see Hakamies-Blomqvist, 1994b, 2006), an accurate estimate is impossible to give, whether based on ‘subjective’ or ‘objective’ means of determination. Secondly, while there are various ways of operationalizing objective risk, the operationalization of the subjective risk is challenging. Objective risk can be expressed with a simple formula, that is, accidents per exposure, but using the same numerical expression for subjective risk is problematic. Not only is it difficult for people to reliably and quantitatively (numerically) estimate the probability for such rare occurrences as crashes (e.g., Rumar, 1988), but the assessments are also likely to be characterized by social psychological mechanisms, such as emotions, attitudes, perceived control, and conceptions of knowledge (Sjöberg, Moen, & Rundmo, 2004). There is wide discussion about the methodological challenges of studying risk perception and whether the issue should be approached by quantitative or qualitative means (see e.g., Sjöberg, 2000). 1.4. Aims of the present study Even if we assume that older drivers’ subjective risk has an influence on their actual driving behaviour the choices they make as drivers, given the methodological and conceptual challenges, claiming that the mechanism would include some mental calculation and comparison between subjective and the objective risk does not make a convincing case. Neither does it seem relevant to just compare older drivers’ objective and subjective risk in order to find out how good a match there is between the two.
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Rather, a better understanding of older drivers’ subjective risk perception and the ways it is related to their driving behaviour is needed. Understanding older drivers’ risk perceptions and the way they influence actual behaviour can help us to tailor better solutions and interventions for serving this growing road-user group. In the present study, older road users’ risk perception was studied using qualitative methods, in order to understand how older drivers construct their perceptions about risk and safety.
2. Materials and methods In the present study, textual interview material from focus group discussions with older Danish persons was used. Focus groups are a common way of collecting empirical material within the qualitative research tradition, and their use in research has increased over the past decades (Krueger & Casey, 2000). Although qualitative methods, in general, are applied relatively rarely to the field of traffic research, they are adequate, especially when attempting to conceptualize a previously unknown research issue, or when attempting to gain an in-depth understanding of certain phenomenon (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). The four focus groups were held with 4–7 participants per each group. Two of the groups were all-male (with participants aged 76–84 and 64–72, respectively) while two comprised both women and men (with participants aged 64–72 and 64–79, respectively). The mean age of the participants was 74 years and the median was 75 years. The participants were recruited from various senior citizen activities arranged by senior citizen associations, such as older driver training courses, handicraft courses and folk-dancing classes. All participants received an invitation letter explaining the scope of the research, giving the opportunity to volunteer. Prior to participation, the participants filled in a short questionnaire mapping certain background variables. By assessing this background information, it can be summarized that all of the participants lived in urbanized areas with good access to public transport (train and/or bus), and they all had an overall good functional status (this was not separately assessed but is based on self-reports). All of the participants had a driving licence and drove regularly. As comes to other socio-economic background variables, the groups were rather homogeneous. It should be noted that, in general, the differences related to economic, health or housing resources are very small in Denmark (all residents are covered by health insurance, for example). All the groups followed the same interview structure and were led by the same moderator. The themes that were brought to focus in the groups were related to mobility and safety. The specific themes were: (1) safety issues as a road user (all modes); (2) safety issues when driving; (3) specific situations that are safe or unsafe. The themes were dealt with from both the individual’s point of view (own experience) and on a group level (older road users in general, as a group). The moderator used the same framing of question in all the groups when introducing the themes to the discussion. The length of the discussions was 1–2 h, and they were videotaped and transcribed verbatim. The transcribed material was analysed in two phases. First, a content analysis was performed, in order to structure the material and to identify interesting emerging patterns from the material. In the content analysis, the content of the discussions was themed and nine categories (some with subcategories) were derived. We paid attention to the reliability and validity of the categorization by means of independent theming by both of the authors. The categorizations were found to be compatible. In addition to the derived categories, the number of instances belonging to each category was recorded in order to illustrate the quantitative proportions of the different themes appearing in the material. After the content analysis, we focused more specifically on the construction of risk. Here, two interesting and relevant patterns emerged and in the second part of the analysis, these themes were selected for further analysis. A general social constructionist approach was used. That is, the analysis focused on the meanings constructed by language use. Hence, in the analysis we focused on not only what the participants said, but also how they chose to say it. Those parts of the focus group discussions used as excerpts in the present paper have been translated from Danish into English. In the excerpts, the moderator is indicated by ‘mod.’ and the interviewees with pseudonyms followed by their age. In the transcripts, pauses in conversations are marked with ellipsis and wherever a word or words have been removed to increase clarity (. . .) has been added.
3. Results and interpretation 3.1. The content analysis The content analysis served as a way of structuring the material, and a total of nine categories were identified in the content analysis. These categories and the number of instances belonging to each category are presented in Table 1. The most common theme in the discussions was the twofold theme of factors contributing to risk in traffic, which could further be divided into external (239 instances) and internal (152 instances) factors. Discussions about self-regulation, generational conflict, older drivers as ‘others’, older driver course, licence renewal, alternative transport modes/multimodality, and gender were more marginal, but clearly formed their own thematic categories. After mapping the themes that were prominent in the discussions in general, the focus was set specifically on the participants’ construction of risk. Two emerging patterns were central in this context, and these were chosen for further analysis. These patterns were somewhat cross-sectional over the thematic categories identified in the content analysis, and were the
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Table 1 Thematic categories derived in the content analysis and the number of instances in each category. Thematic category
Number of instances
External factors contributing to risk in traffic – Infrastructure, traffic volume – Traffic rules /legislations – Behaviour of other road users – Road conditions (e.g., weather, daylight) – Passive safety in vehicles
239 73 27 91 20 28
Internal factors contributing to risk in traffic – Cognitive and physical factors – Stress, emotions – Knowing one’s vehicle – Skills and rule compliance – Familiar vs. unfamiliar places
152 35 21 14 61 21
Self-regulatory behaviour Generational conflict Older drivers as ‘‘others’’ License renewal procedures Alternative transport modes/multimodality Gender issues Older driver courses/driver education
53 29 32 31 25 24 19
participants’ construction of the group ‘older drivers’ and the construction of factors contributing to risk in traffic. In the following Sections 3.2 and 3.3, these patterns are analysed further. 3.2. Construction of the category ‘‘older drivers’’ An interesting feature of the discussions was the way participants constructed the category ‘older drivers’, a group to which they also could be seen to belong. In the analysis, we focused particularly on how the participants discussed risk in relation to age and ageing. The construction of the category ‘older drivers’ was twofold. Partly, the participants constructed themselves as part of the group. This was done by choosing to use the pronoun ‘we’ when referring to the older drivers, and by choosing the pronoun ‘them’ when referring to road users of a younger age, or by describing generational conflicts in traffic, for example. The following excerpt illustrates participants’ responses in one group after a brief introductory discussion on the scope of the groups: Anders (76): I thought your research institute had been tasked to examine us because somebody is unsatisfied with older drivers and thinks we drive poorly . . . Mod.: No, this is to examine . . . [is interrupted by Anders] Anders: But it could be that someone has complained. Mod.: Well I don’t get those complaints. Anders: Well that’s good. But it could have originated from something like that. Mod.: I wouldn’t know what’s going on at the ministry [of transport]. Jens (80): They wouldn’t dare to complain about us! Anders: Oh, it’s possible. We are not as fast as we used to be. It is possible that someone has got irritated with that. Here, the participants (especially Anders) construct the group and the group solidarity through a generational conflict. Often, when the participants chose to construct themselves as part of the group ‘‘older drivers’’, this was done by describing the positive features of growing old, and the positive impact ageing has on driving performance; considerate behaviour, choice of safer speeds and extensive experience were mentioned. Often it was noted, however, that this may create conflict with other road users, who generally were constructed as persons and groups with unsafe travel practices. In the following excerpt, a male participant noted the following about the fellow road users: I would also say that the young drivers, mostly younger drivers and maybe also truck drivers, drive in a way I would call risky. Like when I drive at 110 km/h, just as one should with a safety margin of 100 metres, there aren’t many who obey that. Trucks and others drive closer [to me] than that. And it means I have to slow down because their safety margin is too short for the speed and then eventually they get upset with that and overtake me. And then I have the safety margin again to speed up. But although there often is a speed limit of 130 km/h, I rarely drive faster than 110 km/h. (Christian, 67) When constructing older drivers group in this way, the participants described behaviour that is traditionally perceived as compensatory or self-regulatory behaviour. However, the interpretation of the motives for this behaviour was untraditional in the sense that the modifications of driving were seen as reflecting good driving skills and consideration, rather than experiencing problems in traffic.
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On many occasions, however, the participants constructed themselves as not belonging to the ‘older drivers’ group. This was done, for example, by choosing to use the pronoun ‘them’ when referring to older drivers, or explicitly stating ‘when I become old’. An illustration of this discourse is provided in the following excerpt, where Lene (79 years), Maren (75 years), Vibeke (64 years) and Ruth (75 years) are discussing the driving style of older drivers: Lene (79): Maybe many older people drive too carefully. Maren (75): Yes, that can be irritating Vibeke (64): One can surely drive carefully without driving too slow. There is a difference. If one is careful in a safe way. . . Ruth (75): Yeah, you’re right. Maren: But it is these oldies we are talking about. Vibeke: . . . with a felt hat. Ruth: Yes, we should watch out for them! When older drivers were constructed as ‘the others’, compensatory and self-regulatory behaviour, such as driving at slower speeds, was interpreted as more traditional compensation, that is, behaviour reflecting the deterioration of driving skills and problems in driving. In general, the older road users participating in the study constructed themselves as considerate and experienced drivers. To some extent they attributed the ‘older drivers’ group with the same qualities – namely, when the participants categorized themselves as part of the group. Any age-related risk was, however, externalized in the discussions, and the negative aspects of driver ageing were only mentioned when the participants were categorizing themselves outside the older drivers group. 3.3. Construction of risk: internal and external factors A notable and interesting feature in the discussions was that the participants often chose not to talk directly about their own safety or risks. In order to grasp the participants’ perception of risk, we focused on the factors that the participants saw as contributing to the risk in traffic. We looked especially on where and how the participants placed the locus of control related to risk and safety issues; that is, how they talked about the different factors contributing to risks in traffic, and about the possibilities of influencing and controlling this risk. We found a distinction between placing the control on the individual and placing it on external factors. When the control was placed on external factors that influence traffic safety, the participants constructed risk as a result of the infrastructure, other road users’ behaviour and legislation (or the lack of it). Quite often the risk dependent on the external factors was not seen as a significant source of stress, as these factors were seen as something beyond the individual’s reach. The risk in these cases was constructed as a constant, uncontrollable factor ‘out there’, something not affecting the respondents’ behaviour or their travel choices. As a male participant in one of the groups put it: I don’t feel safe in traffic. Not that I am nervous and shaky – I have been a good driver for many years and drive pretty well, if I may say so. But my fellow road users are not always good drivers. I joke with my wife [when leaving home]: If I come home again. When leaving home, I can get hit on the road and then it is all over. So I am very aware of the risk of modern traffic. (Søren, 70) We interpret the deterministic view of ‘if it happens, it happens’ as a strategy to deal with the fact that one might be injured or killed when entering the traffic. By constructing the risk as something the individual has no means of affecting is a way to overcome and avoid the stress related to the aspiration to control one’s life. In many cases there was, however, a notable striving for control over the situation and shifting the locus of control from the external to the internal factors. This included regulation of behaviour; driving carefully in order to compensate for others’ (potential) mistakes or choosing lower speeds or the safest vehicle types. The following excerpt from a female participant’s description illustrates this: (. . .) for example, if I have right of way, I tend to stop and wait. I’d rather be a bit careful than just storm ahead although I’d have the right to do that. Even if the other has to give way it is better to be careful. It won’t help if you were right if you get run over. (Vibeke, 64) In general, the behaviour of shifting the locus of control resembled what commonly is called compensatory self-regulation. Defensive driving style, compensating for others’ mistakes, and choosing lower speeds and less complex traffic environments, are all means for the individual to increase their control over the risk. When risk was perceived as controllable, it was constructed as being dependent on and regulated by individual features, such as individual competence, skill, knowledge, experience, personality and behavioural patterns, and attitudes. This is illustrated in the following excerpt: Anders (76): The statistics show that it is rarely older persons that cause road accidents, but young people aged 18 to 30 Aage (75): They are always in a hell of a hurry. . .
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Anders: And they are the ones being hurt in accidents and lying in hospitals and having to go to rehabilitation. It is rarely our age group that is involved in accidents. . . and it is because we are careful in what we do and we know the forces we are dealing with [when driving]. Overall, it should be noted that, notably, the participants constructed risk to be dependent less often on internal factors than on external factors (cf. Table 1). It is also noteworthy that when internal factors influencing safety were mentioned, they were predominately factors positively influencing safety, such as good skills and judgement. On the contrary, the external factors influencing safety that were mentioned were predominately those with negative impact on safety, such as the risky behaviour of others or unsuccessful traffic solutions.
4. Discussion and conclusions In the present study, the aim was to examine how older road users construct their perception of risk. Understanding older drivers’ perception of risk and how it is constructed is relevant, given that we assume that the way older drivers perceive risk in traffic has implications for their driving behaviour and the choices they make as drivers. There were two main findings. First, the results indicate that older people in this study tended to perceive risk as something external (e.g., bad infrastructure) that can sometimes be managed through internal means (e.g., own skills). Risk perception was greatly related to the individual’s strategy to manage risk. Risk in traffic was constructed as being ‘out there’, and dependent on external factors, such as others’ behaviour and infrastructure. Risk constructed in this way was managed and controlled by individual skills and characteristics. On the conceptual level, this implies that subjective perception of risk is a psychological construct, rather than a quantitative estimate, and related to the perceived controllability. This is in line with previous findings that have indicated that risk assessments are related to the (perceived) controllability of the risk (Weinstein, 1989). Understanding risk perception as a psychological mechanism connected to the individual perception of control may well open new possibilities for further studies aiming to conceptualize subjective risk perception. Second, the findings from the present study shed light on the conceptual connection between risk perception and driving behaviour – including compensation – of older drivers. The findings imply that the connection between the two is more complicated than often suggested. The results did not imply that older divers perceive their own individual characteristics, such as age-related changes in health and functionality, as risk factors. The participants described self-regulation and compensation in their driving, but interpreted this behaviour as a response to the external risk factors (such as others’ behaviour) rather than a reflection of their own actual risk or abilities. While the participants’ self-regulation practices may have been responses to age-related changes, they were constructed as practices based on the driver’s skill, experience and preferences and, most of all, presented as responses to external factors. As Donorfio and her associates (2008) note, when people are younger and in better health, ‘self-regulation is a method to cope with driving conditions, external situations, and the mistakes and bad habits of others’. Apparently the participants of the present study did not yet feel that ‘driving had become work’ to compensate internal shortcomings in ability and confidence in driving (Donorfio et al., 2008). The findings of the present study did not support the conception of older drivers being overtly aware of age-related changes as potential risk factors, or having particularly unbiased perception of risk. Within social psychology, it is commonly thought that self-serving biases are a natural part of human social cognition (Campbell & Sedikides, 1999; Leary, 2007; Miller & Ross, 1975). Also, older drivers seem to have certain self-serving biases in their attributions. These might serve as cognitive adaptation and coping in response to the demands of the traffic environment. In our opinion, the findings of the present study do, however, not indicate any reason to be concerned about older drivers’ or road users’ judgement of risk in traffic. Even if their considerate driving style is not a result of active, conscious compensation strategies and ‘less illusory risk perception’ as suggested by the earlier literature, the fact is still that older drivers are safe drivers with the lowest accident risk of all age groups (e.g., Langford, Methorst, & Hakamies-Blomqvist, 2006). Much more concern should be addressed towards the finding that older persons seem to experience many risks and threats in the traffic environment. This may lead to a lack of confidence in driving and overestimation of the risks traffic, further leading to a loss of mobility, which, judged by the scientific evidence, has far more severe negative consequences than a slightly biased assessment of risk. In this light, the self-serving biases of older drivers may have an important role in maintaining confidence in traffic (cf. Leary, 2007). The present study’s data consisted of focus group interviews and qualitative methods were used for analysing the data. The participants were a purposive sample, and thus not representative in the sense that representativeness is traditionally understood within the quantitative paradigm. In qualitative research, the possible selectiveness of a sample is, however, not crucial, as representativeness in quantitative sense is never possible to achieve, nor is it desired. The aim is rather to have material and analysis that show good credibility. Although the participants varied in their chronological age, all they held a good functional status enabling them to lead a very active life style. Thus, the findings might be somewhat different from a population with a poorer functional health status, as noted earlier. On the other hand, the majority of the older driver population – both now and in the future – will consist of senior citizens with active life styles and good functional status. The present study presents interesting findings that were produced through a convincing qualitative analysis, and provides a better understanding of the logic of older drivers’ risk perceptions. This will be of relevance when tailoring inter-
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