Self - reported drivers’ behaviour : an application of DBQ in Poland

Most of road accidents are caused by human error. To study these errors road safety researchers developed selfreported measures. DBQ (Driver Behaviour Questionnaire) is one of the most frequently used tools for studies carried out in scope of traffic psychology. It has become an international standard which is used by driver behaviour researchers, yet it is still quite unknown in Poland. The questionnaire describes aberrant behaviour of the drivers in two basic dimensions: errors and violations. The main purpose of following article is to present the theoretical principles underlying the human error model, structure of this tool and polish adaption of the questionnaire. Polish version of the DBQ has 32 items in total. Another aim of the study was to investigate the factorial structure of the DBQ presented in previous studies. The reported data included a sample of 467 drivers. Reliability coefficients were calculated for each scale and their value were around .80 representing high overall reliability. Our analysis indicates that the DBQ construct was fairly congruent with the one presented in the Swedish study. Behaviours were classified due to their factor loadings in following dimensions – violations, mistakes, inattention and inexperience. Seven behaviours have different factor loading, which indicates different psychological mechanism underlying these aberrations. Issues related to these findings are discussed.