Attitudes Toward Driving Safety and Their Modification1

This paper reviews and discusses the measurement of attitudes toward traffic safety and the attempts to change these attitudes and related driving behavior. Psychological testing of such attitudes and personality characteristics is fairly well developed and there are some instruments of good reliability and useable validity. Efforts to modify driver attitudes and behavior are inconclusive and only mildly encouraging. Considerable research needs to be done before the attitudes and behavior of drivers can be changed to improve traffic safety in the United States.