Accident Analysis and Prevention 40 (2008) 1411–1417

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The Driver Behaviour Questionnaire in Arab Gulf countries:Qatar and United Arab Emirates

Abdulbari Benera,b,∗, Turker Ozkanc, Timo Lajunenc

a Department of Medical Statistics & Epidemiology, Hamad General Hospital, Hamad Medical Corporation & University of Qatar, Doha, Qatarb Department of Evidence for Population Health Unit, School of Epidemiology and Health Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UKc Safety Research Unit, Department of Psychology, Middle East Technical University, Ankara Turkey

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Article history:Received 19 July 2007Received in revised form 10 March 2008Accepted 13 March 2008

Keywords:Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ)Traffic accidentsQatarUnited Arab Emirates (UAE)

a b s t r a c t

Manchester Driver Behaviing self-reported driving sinvolvement. In spite of thto European countries andstudy was to investigate tfactors of the DBQ and accountries: Qatar and Unitand 1286 UAE drivers (29background information. TQatari drivers. Surprisinglwere found in UAE. Factorviolations, lapses, and aggfactor structure of the DBQDBQ. Reliabilities of some

tic regression analyses showedinvolvement in Qatar but not iand annual mileage).

1. Introduction

Compared to European countries and USA, Arab countries havea very high road accident fatality rate. In 2000, 14.8, 11.7, and 7.3persons per 10,000 vehicles were killed in Saudi, United Arab Emi-rati and Qatari road traffic, respectively (Bener et al., 2003). Thesame figures (1999 statistics) were, for example, approximately 1.8for Finland, 2.4 for France, 1.5 for UK, and 1.9 for USA (IRF, 2003).

Analyses of traffic accidents indicate that human factors are asole or a contributory factor in road traffic accidents (Lewin, 1982).Human factors in driving can be seen as being composed of twoseparate components, driving skills and driving style (Elander etal., 1993). Driving skills include those information processing andmotor skills, which improve with practice and training, i.e. withdriving experience. Driving style concerns individual driving habits,

∗ Corresponding author at: Department of Medical Statistics & Epidemiology,Hamad General Hospital & Hamad Medical Corporation, Weill Cornell Medical Col-lege, P.O. Box 3050, Doha, Qatar. Tel.: +974 439 3765/6; fax: +974 439 3769.

E-mail addresses: abener@hmc.org.qa, abaribener@hotmail.com (A. Bener).

0001-4575/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.aap.2008.03.003

uestionnaire (DBQ) is one of the most widely used instruments for measur-nd investigating the relationship between driving behaviour and accidentthat Arab Gulf countries have a higher road accident fatality rate compared, the DBQ has not been used in Arab countries so far. The aim of the presenttor structure of the DBQ, then to examine the relationships between thet involvement, and finally to compare DBQ scores between the two gulfab Emirates (UAE). In this study, 1110 Qatari (263 females and 847 males)ales and 992 males) filled a survey questionnaire including the DBQ andsults showed that UAE drivers scored higher on almost all DBQ items than

y very small differences between men and women on the DBQ item scoressis resulted in four factors, which were named as errors, pushing-speedingn-speeding violations. However, there were a number of differences in theE and Qatar when compared to the theoretical four-factor structure of the

cales were also questionably lower than in the original British data. Logis-that errors, lapses, and aggression-speeding violations predicted accidentn UAE after controlling the effect of the demographic variables (age, sex,

© 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

i.e. the way a driver chooses to drive. Driving style becomes estab-lished over a period of years, but does not necessarily get safer withdriving experience (Elander et al., 1993).

Manchester Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (the DBQ) is oneof the most widely used instruments for measuring driving style.The DBQ is based on a theoretical taxonomy of aberrant behavioursdivided into violations and errors (see Reason, 1990; DBQ by Reasonet al., 1990). Violations refer to “deliberate deviations from thosepractices believed necessary to maintain the safe operation ofa potentially hazardous system”. Violations can be classified asaggressive and ordinary ones (Lawton et al., 1997). The aggressiveones involve overtly aggressive acts whereas the ordinary ones con-sist of deliberately breaking the Highway codes and/or law withoutaggressive motives. Errors were defined as a “failure of plannedactions to achieve their intended consequences that can involvethe unwitting deviation of action from intention (slips and lapses)or departure of planned actions from some satisfactory path towarda desired goal (mistakes)”.

In spite of small differences in the theoretical four-factor struc-ture of the DBQ, the overall factor structure has been confirmed indifferent samples (for detailed description see Mesken et al., 2002;

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Lajunen et al., 2004; Sullman et al., 2002; Bener et al., 2007; Gras etal., 2006) also obtained the four-factor structure of the DBQ amongSpanish drivers. However, there were a number of differences tothe theoretical four-factor structure of the DBQ. Results of the factoranalysis showed that lapses items loaded mostly on errors factors,which was a mixture of lapses and errors and one aggressive vio-lations item. Lapses factor was relatively unreliable and composedof only three original lapses items. The Spanish factor structure didnot include the original aggressive violations factor either. Rather,the results confirmed the interpersonal violations factor as a sep-arate entity from the other aggressive violations. Besides, a strongviolations factor including both ordinary and aggressive violationswas obtained and the content of the factor was based on mainly“hurrying up” in traffic.

In the study by Gras et al. (2006) the alpha reliabilities for errors,lapses, interpersonal violations, and violations were 0.82, 0.46, 0.59,and 0.81, respectively. Except for lapses factor, reliabilities of thescales were at about the same level as in the original British dataand other previous data (e.g., Lajunen et al., 2004; Parker et al.,1995b). The DBQ scores have also been found to be reliable overtime (Parker et al., 1995a; Ozkan et al., 2006a).

It has been, in general, reported that women and older driverstend to commit violations less frequently than men and youngdrivers; female and older drivers, on the other hand, commit moreerrors than male and young drivers; it has also been found thatthe more drivers drive, the more often they tend to violate traf-fic rules (Aberg and Rimmo, 1998; Blockey and Hartley, 1995;Reason et al., 1990). Besides, Ozkan et al. (2006b) reported thatWestern/Northern European drivers scored lower on errors andviolations items than Southern European/Middle Eastern drivers.It can be concluded that both external factors (e.g., traffic culture)and internal factors (e.g., age and gender) influence the frequencyof different driver behaviours (see Ozkan, 2006).

The findings of the previous studies have also shown that self-reported driving violations are associated with both active (a driverhits another car or road user) and passive (a driver is hit byanother vehicle) accidents. Besides, violations predicted accidentinvolvement, both retrospectively and prospectively (Parker et al.,1995a,b). In particular, violations have been reported to be associ-ated with active loss-of-control and passive right-of-way accidents(Parker et al., 1995b), as well as with speeding and parking offences(Mesken et al., 2002). Lapses have rarely predicted accident involve-ment in previous studies (Mesken et al., 2002), but errors seemedto be main predictor of involvement in active accidents among

elderly drivers (Parker et al., 2000). However, empirical researchabout the DBQ factor structure and its relationship with accidentinvolvement has not been studied in Arabic countries before. Theaim of the present study was to investigate the factor structureof the DBQ, then to examine the relationships between the fac-tors of the DBQ and accident involvement, and finally to compareDBQ scores between the two gulf countries: Qatar and United ArabEmirates (UAE).

2. Method

2.1. Participants

2.1.1. Qatari driver sampleA multi-stage stratified cluster sampling was applied by using

the administrative division of the Qatar into twenty-one Pri-mary Health Care (PHC) Clinics of the State of Qatar. PHCs areapproximately equal sized in terms of number of inhabitants.The participants were selected among patients registered andattending eleven PHC Centres (8 urban and 3 semi-urban), which

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represent over 70% of total visits per year. Qualified nurses andhealth educators were instructed to structurally interview andcomplete a questionnaire for randomly selected Qatari men andwomen during the period from October 2004 to March 2005. Onethousand one hundred and ten drivers (263 female and 847 male)participated in this study. 80.5% of drivers reported that they hadbeen involved in at least one traffic accident.

2.1.2. United Arab Emirati driversA cross-sectional survey was conducted the period from January

to July 2002 in the Al Ain City, Abu Dhabi and Dubai cities in theUAE. A multi-stage stratified cluster sampling design was devel-oped using an administrative division of the UAE into three citiesof approximately equal size in terms of number of inhabitants. Inorder to ensure a representative sample of the study population, thesampling plan was stratified with proportional allocation accordingto stratum size. Stratification was based upon geographical loca-tion. With 2.5% error bound and 99% confidence limit the requiredsample size was estimated as 1800 drivers. The participants weresampled from each region so that the sample size in each regionwas proportional to its share of total population in the Emirates. Ahealth educator and social workers recorded the data of each sub-ject on a standardized questionnaire. A representative sample of1800 UAE drivers was selected and approached while renewal of carregistration. The sample included males and females aged 18 yearsand above. A total number of 1286 Arabian Emirati drivers (294females and 992 males) took part in the study (Bener et al., 2007).55.8% of drivers reported that they had been involved in at leastone traffic accident. All participants had driving licenses and wereassured of anonymity and confidentiality. The participants filledout the DBQ and items related to drivers’ driving records and demo-graphic variables. Although the sampling strategy was different inthe two studied countries, the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire wasthe tool used to investigate the relationship between self-reporteddriving questionnaire and crash involvement in both countries.

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. Aberrant driver behavioursDBQ with extended violations was used to measure aberrant

driver behaviours (Lajunen et al., 2004; Lawton et al., 1997).An Arabic version of the DBQ was revised by the bilingual co-investigator and back translated by another bilingual expert. The

translators made together the necessary corrections, modificationsand rewording after considering the minor differences and dis-crepancies. The extended version of the DBQ includes aggressiveand ordinary violations (10 items, e.g. “disregard speed limit onmotorways”), lapses (8 items, e.g. “forget where you left your carin the car park”, and errors (8 items, e.g. “misjudging the speedof another vehicle when overtaking”). Two violations items weredropped because of cultural or structural factors (e.g., drinking anddriving, and “pulling out of, force your way”). Gras et al. (2006)also suggested that “pulling out of, force your way” item might beomitted from future research because of its instability across theDBQ factors. Two violations items were also revised after gettingfeedback from drivers. “Disregard speed limits on a residentialroad” was revised as “disregard the speed limits late at night orearly in the morning”. “Drive close to the car in front, making itdifficult to stop in an emergency” was revised as “Drive especiallyclose to the car in front as a signal to its driver to go faster or getout of the way”. Participants were asked to indicate how often theycommitted each of the 26 behaviours in the previous year on asix-point scale (0 = never, 1 = hardly ever, 2 = occasionally, 3 = quiteoften, 4 = frequently, and 5 = nearly all the time).

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Table 1Socio-demographic characteristics of drivers surveyed in Qatar and UAE

Variables Qatar, n = 1110 (%) UAE, n = 1286 (%) P value

Age group<20 51 (4.6) 129 (10.0)20–29 375 (33.8) 386 (30.0)30–39 361 (32.5) 382 (29.7) <0.00140–49 225 (20.3) 288 (22.4)≥50 98 (8.8) 101 (7.9)

GenderMale 847 (76.3) 992 (77.1) 0.631Female 263 (23.7) 294 (22.9)

EducationIlliterate 148 (13.3) 233 (18.1)Primary 254 (22.9) 364 (28.3)Intermediate 148 (13.3) 332 (25.8) <0.001Secondary 382 (34.4) 196 (15.2)

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2.2.2. Demographic variablesParticipants were asked to indicate their age, gender, mari-

tal status, educational level, occupation, place of living, housingconditions, driving experience, type of car, frequency of seat beltuse, reasons for not wearing a seat belt, speed choice on differ-ent roads, annual mileage, traffic offences, history of accident andinjury involvement.

2.3. Statistical analyses

The analyses were performed using the Statistical Package forSocial Sciences (SPSS) (Norusis, 1998) for the statistical analysis.One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was run to study whetherthere were significant differences between Qatari and United ArabEmirati drivers and between male and female drivers on the DBQitem scores. Principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rota-tion was run to examine the factor structure of the DBQ in Qatarand UAE. Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients were also calcu-lated for assessing the internal consistency of the DBQ scale scores.Direct logistic regression was performed with accident involve-ment as dependent and four DBQ factors as independent variables.Age, sex, and annual mileage were forced into the model to controltheir effect.

3. Results

In Qatar, the age distribution of the participants ranged from18 to 70 years with the mean age of 33.72 years (S.D. 0.21 years)and the mean of annual mileage was 25,900 km (S.D. 38,820 km).In UAE, the age distribution of the participants ranged from 19 to 70years with the mean age of 33.51 years (S.D. 10.02) and the meanof annual mileage was 21,730 km (S.D. 6790).

3.1. Socio-demographic characteristics of the surveyed drivers inQatar and UAE

Significant differences were found between Qatar and UAE indriver age, education, occupation and seat belt use Table 1.

3.2. Descriptive statistics for the DBQ item scores: Qatari and

United Arab Emirati drivers

The means and standard deviations of the DBQ items for Qatarand UAE can be found in Table 2. “Get into the wrong lane approach-ing a roundabout or a junction” and “aversion, indicate hostility”were the least frequently reported driver behaviours whereas thetwo most frequently reported driver behaviours were “overtake aslow driver on the inside” and “sound horn to indicate your annoy-ance” in Qatar and “cross a junction when the traffic lights haveturned red and “disregard the speed limits on motorway” in UAE,respectively. Qatari male drivers scored higher on all DBQ itemsthan Qatari female drivers except on “miss give way signs”. Themost striking finding of the present study was that there was nosignificant difference between male and female Emirati drivers onthe DBQ items except “hitting something when reversing”. UnitedArab Emirati male drivers scored significantly higher on the fol-lowing six DBQ items than female drivers: “cross a junction whenthe lights turned red”, “angered by another driver’s behaviour”,“attempt to overtake someone”, “queuing to enter to main road andnearly hit the car in front”, “hit a two wheeler”, and “fail to checkyour rear-view mirror”.

University 178 (16.0) 161 (12.5)

OccupationNot working 77 (6.9) 49 (3.8)Sedentary/professional 392 (35.3) 198 (15.7)Manual 204 (18.4) 295 (22.9)Business man 158 (14.2) 297 (23.1) <0.001Housewife 92 (8.3) 127 (9.9)Army/police 114 (10.3) 192 (14.9)Student 73 (6.6) 128 (10.0)

Driving experience<1 year 147 (13.2) 217 (16.9)2–5 years 314 (28.3) 329 (25.6) 0.0575–9 years 252 (22.7) 303 (23.6)≥10 years 397 (35.8) 437 (34.0)

Car type4WD 436 (39.3) 513 (39.9) 0.760Small car 674 (60.7) 773 (60.1)

Seat belt useYes 501 (45.1) 517 (40.2) 0.014No 609 (54.9) 769 (59.8)

3.3. The factor structure of the DBQ in Qatar and UAE

The criteria used to determine the number of factors were theKaiser criterion of eigenvalues over 1.0, the Cattell Scree plot, par-allel analysis, and the interpretability of factors. Initially, eight andnine factors had eigenvalues over 1.0 in Qatar and UAE samples,respectively. However, the Scree plot and parallel analysis sug-gested the four-factor solution to be the most interpretable one

in both samples.

As presented in Table 3, the first component included 10 itemsin the Qatar sample and seven items in the UAE sample. It seemsto reflect mostly “errors” on the road, and thus, was labelled as“errors”. However, the factor included two lapses (“misreading thesigns, exit from a roundabout on the wrong road” and “getting intothe wrong lane approaching a roundabout or a junction”) and oneordinary violations item (“shooting lights”) in the Qatar samplewhile the factor included one lapses (“getting into the wronglane approaching a roundabout or a junction”) and one ordinaryviolations item (“shooting lights”) in UAE sample. The secondcomponent consisted of the same five items both in the Qatarand UAE samples. This component seems to describe a driver’sspeeding related activities and a kind of “pushing” strategies onthe car in front, and thus, was labelled as “pushing-speeding”. Thethird component included five items in the Qatar sample and thesame four items in the UAE sample. It seems to reflect clear “lapses”factor. The fourth component consisted of four items in the Qatarsample and five items in the UAE sample. This component seems todescribe a driver’s interpersonal aggression and speeding relatedcompetition, and thus, was labelled as “aggression-speeding”.

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Table 2Means and standard deviations of DBQ items separately for male and female drivers in Qatar and UAE

Variables Qatar total UAE total F-values Qatar male Qatar female F-values UAE male UAE female F-values

ViolationsDrive especially close to the car in front as a signal to its driver to gofaster or get out of the way

1.48 ± 1.59 1.71 ± 1.73 10.95*** 1.53 ± 1.60 1.35 ± 1.56 2.53 1.70 ± 1.73 1.76 ± 1.70 .26

Cross a junction knowing that the traffic lights have already turned red 1.28 ± 1.57 2.69 ± 1.85 397.23*** 1.36 ± 1.56 1.05 ± 1.57 7.84** 2.71 ± 1.83 2.63 ± 1.89 .42Disregard the speed limits late at night or early in the morning 1.79 ± 1.71 2.67 ± 1.86 141.72*** 1.87 ± 1.68 1.56 ± 1.79 6.74** 2.67 ± 1.86 2.67 ± 1.85 .00Disregard the speed limits on a motorway 1.41 ± 1.61 1.73 ± 1.87 19.85*** 1.49 ± 1.62 1.15 ± 1.54 8.77** 1.73 ± 1.87 1.73 ± 1.88 .00Have an aversion to a particular class of road user and indicate yourhostility by whatever means you can

1.29 ± 1.52 1.39 ± 1.61 2.48 1.31 ± 1.52 1.20 ± 1.50 1.17 1.39 ± 1.62 1.39 ± 1.57 .00

Become impatient with a slow driver in the outer lane and overtake onthe inside (right) lane

1.94 ± 1.81 1.98 ± 1.72 .26 1.97 ± 1.79 1.87 ± 1.88 .50 1.93 ± 1.69 2.15 ± 1.77 3.66 > .056

Get involved with unofficial ‘races’ with other drivers 1.59 ± 1.67 2.25 ± 1.82 86.02*** 1.60 ± 1.66 1.56 ± 1.69 .12 2.24 ± 1.82 2.28 ± 1.78 .09Angered by another driver’s behaviour, you give chase with the intentionof giving him/her a piece of your mind

1.46 ± 1.52 1.83 ± 1.67 31.12*** 1.50 ± 1.51 1.35 ± 1.55 2.02 1.84 ± 1.68 1.80 ± 1.65 .10

Sound your horn to indicate your annoyance to another driver 1.91 ± 1.71 2.09 ± 1.69 6.95** 1.93 ± 1.70 1.83 ± 1.73 .76 2.04 ± 1.68 2.26 ± 1.68 3.72 > .054Stay in a motorway that you know will be closed ahead until the lastminute before forcing you way into the other lane

1.34 ± 1.54 1.40 ± 1.63 .96 1.40 ± 1.55 1.16 ± 1.50 4.74* 1.42 ± 1.63 1.34 ± 1.60 .65

ErrorsAttempt to overtake someone that you had not noticed to be signalling aleft/right turn

1.35 ± 1.67 1.68 ± 1.96 19.94*** 1.36 ± 1.67 1.30 ± 1.67 .31 1.71 ± 1.98 1.58 ± 1.87 1.01

Miss ‘give way’ signs and narrowly avoid colliding with traffic havingright of way

1.43 ± 1.64 1.83 ± 1.63 36.36*** 1.42 ± 1.62 1.45 ± 1.70 .07 1.78 ± 1.63 1.99 ± 1.62 3.52

Fail to notice that pedestrians are crossing when turning into a sidestreet from a main road

1.40 ± 1.52 1.65 ± 1.59 15.74*** 1.42 ± 1.54 1.34 ± 1.48 .57 1.65 ± 1.60 1.67 ± 1.52 .03

Queuing to turn right/left onto a main road, you pay such close attentionto the mainstream of traffic that you nearly hit the car in front

1.66 ± 1.71 2.55 ± 1.81 149.41*** 1.70 ± 1.70 1.54 ± 1.74 1.81 2.58 ± 1.80 2.41 ± 1.83 1.96

On turning right/left nearly hit a two wheeler who has come up on yourinside

1.57 ± 1.59 2.22 ± 1.62 98.50*** 1.61 ± 1.59 1.44 ± 1.60 2.04 2.23 ± 1.62 2.21 ± 1.61 .03

Fail to check your rear-view mirror before pulling out or changing lanes,etc.

1.37 ± 1.44 1.96 ± 1.69 82.78*** 1.39 ± 1.42 1.31 ± 1.49 .66 2.00 ± 1.69 1.85 ± 1.69 1.62

Underestimate the speed of an oncoming vehicle when overtaking 1.51 ± 1.52 1.93 ± 1.57 43.91*** 1.52 ± 1.50 1.48 ± 1.57 .12 1.92 ± 1.55 1.97 ± 1.62 .21Apply sudden brakes on a slippery road, or steer wrong way in a skid 1.39 ± 1.32 1.85 ± 1.56 59.18*** 1.39 ± 1.31 1.37 ± 1.34 .04 1.84 ± 1.55 1.88 ± 1.58 .18

LapsesGet into the wrong lane when approaching a roundabout or a junction 1.11 ± 1.43 1.70 ± 1.79 77.94*** 1.12 ± 1.41 1.08 ± 1.50 .16 1.67 ± 1.76 1.79 ± 1.86 .99Misread the signs and exit from the roundabout on the wrong road 1.56 ± 1.78 1.99 ± 1.82 32.87*** 1.59 ± 1.79 1.48 ± 1.73 .71 2.01 ± 1.83 1.92 ± 1.75 .55Forget where you left your car in the car park 1.14 ± 1.33 1.49 ± 1.43 37.37*** 1.19 ± 1.35 0.98 ± 1.25 5.19* 1.52 ± 1.44 1.38 ± 1.37 2.26Hit something when reversing that you had not previously seen 1.47 ± 1.40 1.66 ± 1.51 10.36*** 1.55 ± 1.44 1.23 ± 1.23 10.11** 1.73 ± 1.53 1.44 ± 1.40 8.63**

Attempt to drive away from the traffic lights 1.49 ± 1.45 1.62 ± 1.56 4.27* 1.52 ± 1.45 1.40 ± 1.44 1.26 1.64 ± 1.56 1.55 ± 1.54 .65Switch on one thing, such as headlights, when you meant to switch onsomething else, such as wipers

1.85 ± 1.75 2.32 ± 1.81 42.37*** 1.83 ± 1.75 1.88 ± 1.77 .12 2.31 ± 1.82 2.35 ± 1.76 .12

Intending to drive to destination A and, you ‘wake up’ to find yourself indestination B, because the latter is your more usual destination

1.39 ± 1.49 1.68 ± 1.51 21.97*** 1.43 ± 1.51 1.27 ± 1.40 2.13 1.70 ± 1.52 1.62 ± 1.48 .54

Realize you have no clear recollection of the road along which you havebeen travelling

1.44 ± 1.63 1.49 ± 1.66 .64 1.44 ± 1.61 1.45 ± 1.67 .01 1.44 ± 1.63 1.69 ± 1.72 5.13*

* p < 0.05.** p < 0.01.

*** p < 0.001.

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One DBQ item, “intending to drive to destination A, instead driveto B”, did not load on any of the factors neither in the Qatar nor in theUAE sample. “Disregarding speed limits late at night or early in themorning” item did not load on any of the factors in the Qatar samplewhile “getting angry, give chase”, “having no clear recollection ofthe road”, “missing ‘Give Way’ signs”, and “misreading the signs,exit from a roundabout on the wrong road” did not load on any ofthe factors in the UAE sample (see Table 3).

3.4. Reliability coefficients for the DBQ subscales in Qatar andUnited Arab Emirates

Reliability analyses for the four-factor solution of the DBQrevealed that the alpha reliabilities for errors, pushing-speeding,lapses, and aggression-speeding factors were 0.70, 0.67, 0.60, and0.50 in the Qatar sample, and 0.56, 0.64, 0.58, and 0.24 in the UAEsample, respectively. The reliabilities scores were, in general, verylow and, for example, aggression-speeding factor was highly unre-liable in the UAE sample.

3.5. The relationship between DBQ factors and accidentinvolvement

3.5.1. In Qatari driver sampleA test of the full model with all predictors against a

constant-only model was statistically significant, (�27,1110 = 176.89,

p < 0.001), indicating that the set of the predictors showed sig-nificant difference between drivers with accidents and withoutaccidents. The variance in accident involvement was 15% with anoverall rate of 86% of drivers correctly classified. As shown in Table 4,errors, lapses, and aggression-speeding factors predicted accidentinvolvement. The odds ratio of 2.82 showed a relatively large change

Table 3Four-factor solution of the DBQ items, eigenvalues and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, anddata

Four-factor order in PCA Errors

Items (original type) Q UAE2

Queuing, nearly hit car in front (E4) 0.67 0.7Fail to see pedestrians crossing (E3) 0.59 0.3Fail to check your rear-view mirror (E6) 0.57 0.5Brake too quickly on a slippery road (E8) 0.51 0.3Turning right nearly hit cyclist (E5) 0.5 0.3Misread the signs, exit from a roundabout on the wrong road (L2) 0.49 –Underestimate the speed of an oncoming vehicle (E7) 0.43Shooting lights (OV2) 0.41 0.7Get into the wrong lane approaching a roundabout or a junction (L1) 0.4 0.3Miss “give way” signs (E2) 0.35 –Disregard the speed limit on motorway (OV4)Close following as a signal (OV1)Attempt to overtake someone turning left (E1)Aversion, indicate hostility (AV5)Push in at last minute (AV10)Forget where you left your car (L3)Hit something when reversing (L4)Switch on one thing, meaning the other (L6) 0.38Attempt to drive away in third gear (L5)Have no clear recollection of the road (L8) –Race from lights (AV7)Get angry, give chase (AV8) –Overtake a slow driver on the inside (OV6)Sound horn to indicate your annoyance (AV9)Intending to drive to destination A, instead drive to B (L7) – –Disregard the speed limit morning-night (OV3) –Eigenvalues 4.25 2.7Cronbach’s alpha .70 .5Variance (%) 16.3 10.5

Note: Factor loadings below .30 were omitted for the sake of clarity.

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in the likelihood of accident involvement on the basis of a one-unit change in errors. The ratio was 1.51 for lapses and 1.19 foraggression-speeding.

3.5.2. In United Emirati driver sampleA test of the full model with all predictors against a constant-

only model was not statistically significant, (�27,1286 = 11.45,

p > 0.05), indicating that the set of the predictors did not show anysignificant difference between drivers with accidents and withoutaccidents. Expectedly, the variance in accident involvement is verysmall (i.e., 1%) and success of prediction was unimpressive, with an

overall rate of 56% of drivers correctly classified. As shown in Table 4,none of the variables predicted significantly accident involvement.

4. Discussion

Consistently with previous studies (Aberg and Rimmo, 1998;Blockey and Hartley, 1995; Mesken et al., 2002), the frequenciesof the DBQ responses were, in general, between “never” to “hardlyever” and rarely “occasionally” both in Qatar and UAE. However,the scores of Qatari and United Arab Emirati DBQ items were, ingeneral, higher than the scores of British (Reason et al., 1990), Aus-tralian (Blockey and Hartley, 1995), Finnish and Dutch (Lajunen etal., 2004), and Greek and Turkish (e.g., Ozkan et al., 2006b) drivers.United Arab Emirati drivers scored higher on all DBQ items thanQatari drivers, except for four DBQ items (see Table 2). However,the factor structure and reliability scores of the DBQ seem to requiresome ‘culture-specific’ items as well, especially in United Arab Emi-rates. In addition, the results of the present study clearly supportthe idea (see Ozkan, 2006) that external factors (e.g., traffic contextwith the lack of enforcement and applied rules, and congestion)could sometimes be much more important than internal factors

variance of the DBQ subscales both in Qatar (Q) and United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Pushing-speeding Lapses Aggression-speeding

Q UAE Q UAE Q UAE1 3 4

364 −0.324 −0.525 0.33

– – –0.38

6 0.31

– – –0.75 0.640.61 0.530.6 0.670.59 0.620.58 0.68

0.77 0.730.77 0.750.52 0.510.49 0.58

– 0.33 – –0.67 0.5

– – 0.64 –0.55 0.320.51 0.36

– – – – – –– – – 0.34

4 2.04 1.86 1.42 1.63 1.38 1.446 .67 .64 .60 .58 .50 .285 7.87 7.17 5.47 6.29 5.31 5.54

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Table 4Logistic analyses of accident involvement as a function of aberrant driver behaviouramong Qatari and United Arab Emirati drivers

national countries, the present study was restricted to Arab drivers

Variables 95% confidence interval for odds ratio

B Wald test(z-score)

Oddsratio

Lower Upper

Qatar sampleAge −.00 .39 .99 1.01 .98Sex −.33 3.38 .71 .50 1.02Annual km .00 6.65 1.00 1.00 1.00Errors 1.04 60.05 2.83 2.17 3.68Pushing-speeding .10 1.17 1.11 .91 1.34Lapses .41 14.12 1.51 1.21 1.87Aggression-speeding .17 4.27 1.19 1.00 1.41

UAE sampleAge .00 1.17 1.00 .99 1.01Sex −.37 7.91 .68 .52 .89Annual km .00 .03 1.00 1.00 1.00Errors −.00 .00 .99 .88 1.13Pushing-speeding −.03 .39 .96 .87 1.07Lapses −.02 .23 .97 .87 1.08Aggression-speeding −.06 .88 .94 .82 1.07

Note: Clasification rate (CR) of the cases were lower than chance accuracy rate (CAR)both in Qatar (CR: 84.2% and CAR: 86.7%) and UAE (CR: 56.6% and CAR: 63.2%).

(e.g., cognitive mechanisms, attention etc.) for shaping the factorstructure of the DBQ. For instance, Dubai (very congested networkin UAE) might have more congested traffic compared to Al Ain inUAE (see Lajunen et al., 1999). In addition, traffic laws and theirapplication (i.e., traffic fines) in Arab Gulf countries might not beas standardized as in the European countries. Besides, traffic lawsmight vary within in one Arab Gulf country (i.e., UAE) because of itsfederal state structure but not in the another Arab Gulf country (i.e.,Qatar). It was also the first time that the DBQ factors were found tobe related (although weakly) to accident involvement among Emi-rati drivers. It seems that Emirati drivers just drive without beingaware of the differences between the types of driver behaviours andtheir possible consequences in traffic. Thus, the differentiation oferrors, lapses, and violations did not emerge among Emirati driverswell.

Consistent with the tendency found in Ozkan et al. (2006b)study, the DBQ factor structure might get more blurred whilethe frequency of the behaviours gets higher when going far fromWest/North to East/South. For example, it was found that Arab Gulfdrivers, especially drivers in UAE, scored much higher on the DBQ

items than Western/Northern European drivers (e.g., Blockey andHartley, 1995; Lajunen et al., 2004; Reason et al., 1990) and evenhigher than Southern European/Middle Eastern drivers (e.g., Ozkanet al., 2006b).

The results of the factor analysis showed that lapses itemsloaded mostly on errors factor, which was a mixture of lapses anderrors and some violation items. Similar to Spanish factor structure(Gras et al., 2006), the factor structure did not support the originaldivision to aggressive and ordinary violations either. The content ofthe factor was rather based on mainly “hurrying up” and “tailgat-ing” or “pushing” among Arab Gulf drivers. The reliabilities scoreswere also, in general, lower than in the original British data and, forexample, aggression-speeding factor was highly unreliable in theUAE sample. It might be possible to find ‘culture-specific’ items forhigher reliability scores in Arab Gulf countries. On the other hand,it also likely that scaling or ways of response to items might varyfrom Western societies to Arab Gulf countries. Therefore, theoret-ical, methodological and practical reasons for the low reliabilityscores should be investigated in a further study.

In contrast to general findings in literature that women tendto commit violations less frequently than men and commit more

revention 40 (2008) 1411–1417

errors than men (Aberg and Rimmo, 1998; Blockey and Hartley,1995; Reason et al., 1990), there was no significant differencebetween male and female Emirati drivers on DBQ item scores excepton item “hitting something when reversing”. It seems that gen-der stereotypes or roles for drivers are not strictly defined in ArabGulf traffic. Female drivers seem to commit as much violationsand errors as male drivers. The reasons behind this ‘freedom ofexpression’ for every one should be examined. Besides, none ofthe DBQ factors was related to accident involvement in the UAE.However, errors, lapses, and aggression-speeding violations fac-tors predicted accident involvement in Qatar. In particular, errorsappeared as the most critical factor in accident involvement. There-fore, the sources of the possible reasons of driver errors (e.g., thepossible reasons for failure or departure from planned actions)should be investigated in Qatari traffic. Moreover, the problemsof the applicability of the DBQ among Emirati drivers should befurther examined by applying the DBQ among different drivergroups. In addition, the reasons behind the differences in driverbehaviour and traffic safety between countries should be investi-gated.

5. Methodological limitations

The data were based solely on drivers’ self-reports of behaviourand no observations were made. However, several studies haveindicated that self-reports of driving correspond well to actual driv-ing behaviour. For instance, Ingham (1991) found high correlationsbetween recorded driving on a 40 km test route and self-reporteddriver behaviour. It is also possible that some respondents embel-lished their answers about positive and aggressive driving. It shouldbe noted, however, the respondents completed the questionnairesanonymously and could not gain anything by giving embellishedresponses. In their experimental study about the DBQ and socialdesirability bias, Lajunen and Summala (2003) concluded that thebias caused by socially desirable responding is very small in the DBQresponses. The measurement of accident involvement was basedon a self-report of all past accidents. Simply because of forgettingto report some accidents (Maycock et al., 1991), some respondentsmay have underestimated the number of accidents in which theyhad been involved.

The target group of the present study was local drivers bothin Qatar and United Arab Emirates. Although expatriates mightrepresent large proportion of the driver population in these multi-

because of difficulties in data collection from about one hundredtwenty different nationalities living in the area and because ofother methodological issues (e.g., difficulties to obtain represen-tative samples). It is likely that behaviour of drivers originatingfrom different countries might still be different even though theyare sharing the same traffic environment (see Ozkan, 2006). There-fore, the interaction between local drivers and expatriates in trafficshould be taken into account while interpreting the results of thepresent study.

Finally, the DBQ is a measure for aberrant driver behaviour,therefore, by its nature, the DBQ item scores have not been nor-mally distributed in any DBQ article in the literature. This featureof the scale should be taken into account in statistical analyses andspecific statistical techniques (i.e., logistic regression) should beused.

Acknowledgements

This project was financially funded by the Qatar Red CrescentSociety, and supported by Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, State

s and P

A. Bener et al. / Accident Analysi

of Qatar. We greatly acknowledge their help for execution of thiswork and manuscript.

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