The role of attitudes toward safety in driving behaviour: testing the mediation of intentional and unintentional driver errors.

Abstract

Background: The aim of the study was to examine whether attitudes toward safety are statistically associated with the relationship between HEXACO (honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience) personality traits and Reason's classification of driving behaviours, and whether this pattern differs between intentional and unintentional behaviours.

Material and methods: The study involved 76 women and 122 men who drive passenger vehicles as part of their professional duties. The HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised was used to measure personality traits, the Driving Behaviour Questionnaire to assess driving behaviours, the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire to measure attitudes toward safety, and a demographic survey.

Results: Statistically significant indirect effects via attitudes toward safety were found between emotionality, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience and violations. For honesty-humility and agreeableness, both indirect effects via attitudes toward safety and direct effects on violations were observed. No significant indirect effects via attitudes toward safety were found for mistakes, lapses, or inexperience.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that attitudes toward safety may be more closely related to intentional violations than to unintentional driving behaviours. At the same time, the absence of indirect effects for mistakes, lapses, and inexperience, together with the presence of some direct associations with HEXACO traits, suggests that additional cognitive or self-regulatory mechanisms may be involved. Given the cross-sectional design, the results should be interpreted as correlational and require further verification in longitudinal and multi-method research. Med Pr Work Health. 2026;77(6).