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THE SPEEDING DRIVER: WHO, HOW AND WHY?

JUDGED SERIOUSNESS OF INFRINGEMENTS

7.53 Respondents rated the seriousness of the same infringements with the omission of amber gambling and the addition of two seat belt violations, 'Driving without wearing seat belts' and 'Passengers not wearing a seat belt'. Ratings were on a 4-point scale from Very Serious to Very Minor. The distribution of responses is shown in Table 7.20 arranged in descending order of the proportions rating them 'Very serious'.

Table 7.20: Judged seriousness of infringements

7.54 Drink-driving and racing another driver were rated the most serious of these driving infringements. Excessive speed in a built-up area ('50mph in a 30mph zone') was rated very serious by more respondents than excessive speed on the motorway or dual carriageway ('90mph in a 70mph zone') (86%:64%). Excess, but not excessive, speed in built-up area (34% very serious) or outside (23% very serious) were rated the least serious of this set and (Table 6.33) are the most frequently committed.

7.55 Table 7.21 shows the items on which male and female drivers differed significantly in their ratings.

Table 7.21: Driving infringements on which male and female drivers differ in rated seriousness

7.56 Female drivers thought each of these infringements more serious than did male drivers.

7.57 The seriousness ratings were factor analysed, producing a four-factor varimax solution shown in Table 7.22.

Table 7.22: Rotated factor structure of seriousness judgements

7.58 The drink-driving behaviours loaded on a separate factor (Factor Four) as did the seatbelt behaviours (Factor Three) and the speed behaviours (Factor Two) with all the aggressive driving behaviours loading on Factor One. Thus respondents were treating aggressive driving, speeding, seat-belt compliance and drink-driving as separate areas of moral consideration.

Does judged seriousness deter commission?

7.59 Does judging a driving infringement as serious mean that a driver will refrain from doing it? Table 7.23 shows the results of crosstabulating frequency of commission with judged seriousness for 13 infringements.

Table 7.23: Frequency of commission of driving infringements by whether they were judged minor or serious

7.60 For all the infringements, save driving through a red light, there was a statistically significant relationship between judged seriousness and frequency of commission. But while statistically significant the relationship was not perfect. For each infringement there is a proportion of respondents saying 'I think it's minor but (even so) I don't do it' and another proportion saying 'I think it's serious but (even so) I do it'.

7.61 Table 7.24 abstracts the four speed infringements, the focus of this Report.

Table 7.24: How serious is it to do this while driving? crosstabulated with How often do you do this when driving? for four speeding behaviours

7.62 For all four speeding behaviours, comparable proportions of those who think it minor say they do it often or very often (36% - 44%). However there are large variations in the proportions who think each serious and (in consequence?) Never do it: from 1 in 4 (24%) for driving at 40 in a 30, through half (47%) for 80 in a 70 and two-thirds (66%) for 90 in a 70, to 5 out of 6 (84%) for driving at 50 in a 30.

7.63 Similarly, there are small, but worrying, proportions of drivers who think each speeding behaviour serious, yet say they do it often or very often, from 1% for 90 in a 70 to 9% for 40 in a 30.

7.64 Thus while there are reasonable proportions of drivers whose behaviour is consistent with their espoused moral judgements (bolded figures in Table 6.40), there are substantial numbers of drivers whose moral attitude and reported behaviour do not tally, whether because they are doing things they think are wrong, or not doing things that they don't think are very wrong. These judgements of seriousness seem not to play a major part in many drivers' habitual speed choice.

Likelihood of getting caught

7.65 Respondents were asked, for each of the 7 photographs, 'If you were speeding on a road like this, how likely or unlikely do you think you would be to get caught speeding?'. Table 7.25 gives the distribution of responses.

Table 7.25 Rated likelihood of getting caught while speeding for each road type

7.66 The distribution of responses is very similar across six of the seven roads, but respondents rated their chances of getting caught speeding as substantially lower on P7, the rural 60 mph road with only 1 in 25 (4%) thinking it 'Very likely.

Does likelihood of detection deter speeding?

7.67 Do subjective speeders - those whose normal speed exceeds their estimate of the speed limit for the road - see their chances of detection as much lower? This was tested for all seven road types. For five of the seven road types there was no difference between speeders and non-speeders in their rated likelihood of detection if speeding. Table 7.26 shows the distribution of responses for the two roads where differences were found, the motorway (P1) and the wide residential street (P5).

Table 7.26: Comparison of rated likelihood of detection for drivers whose normal speed does (speeders) and does not (non-speeders) exceed their estimate of the speed limit on motorway (P1) and wide residential street (P5)

7.68 On all seven, both speeders and non-speeders (here defined as those whose normal speed exceeds their reading of the speed limit) rate their likelihood of detection when speeding across the full range from 'Very likely' to 'Not at all likely'. On the motorway (P1) 45% of speeders (15+30) rate their chances of getting caught when speeding as very or quite likely, yet still speed. 51% of drivers who don't 'normally' speed on motorways (37+14) rate their chances of getting caught if speeding as not very or not at all likely, yet they don't speed. While for these two road types the relation is statistically significant, it is still not a very compelling one. These judgements of likelihood of detection seem to play little part in drivers' habitual speed choice.

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