The Mediation Effect of Traffic Locus of Control on the Relationships between Psychological Characteristics and Reckless Driving of Drivers

We sought to investigate the mediation effect of multidimensional traffic-locus of control (T-LOC) of drivers on the relationships between their psychological characteristics and reckless driving behaviors using questionnaire battery composed of Driving Behavior Determinants Questionnaire, Reckless Driving Behavior Questionnaire, and Multidimensional Traffic Locus of Control Questionnaire. As results of the analysis showed that the mediation effect of T-LOC had a partial mediation of both internal and external T-LOC relationship between the drivers’ psychological characteristics and reckless driving behavior. More specifically, internal T-LOC had a tendency of complete mediation effect relationship between Anti-Personal Angry of psychological characteristics and Drunken Driving of reckless driving behavior and external T-LOC also had a complete mediation effect relationship between Anti-Personal Angry of psychological characteristics and Speeding of reckless driving behavior. Based on these results, we confirmed that even if the drivers had the same psychological characteristics, the kinds of reckless driving behavior was different according to the belief in the cause of the accident. Therefore, it is suggested that the systems that need to interact with drivers, such as in-vehicle intelligent systems and autonomous vehicles, should reflect their psychological characteristics.