Understanding young drivers in Turkey: Time perspective, driving skills, and driver behaviors

Abstract

Many studies have focused on the tendency of young drivers to drive riskily. However, little is known regarding time perspective, driving skills, and driver behaviors, even though time perspective is an important predictor of many risky behaviors. Time perspective is a general construct of the thoughts relating to present, past, and future. Broadly, (i) past time perspective is related to the recall of reconstructed past scenarios; (ii) present time perspective means attending to immediate and salient stimulus; and (iii) future time perspective is related to anticipation and imagining future consequences. In the present study, we investigated the effect of time perspective on driving skills and driver behaviors. Young drivers (N = 203, aged 18 to 30, M = 25.36, SD = 3.09) who drive their own vehicle at least 1000 km per year completed the Driving Skill Inventory, Driver Behavior Questionnaire, and Time Perspective Inventory. The canonical correlation findings revealed significant associations between the study variables. Lower scores on present hedonistic time perspective were associated with lower scores on perceptional-motor skills. Lower scores on past negative and present fatalistic time perspectives, and higher scores on past positive and future time perspectives were associated with higher scores on safety skills and lower scores on errors and traffic violations. These results provide a better understanding of the causes of young drivers' risky behaviors.