A Stated Preference Experiment for Understanding Drivers’ Risk Perception

Because most traffic accidents are caused by the human factor, intervention programs should work to prevent and reduce these fatal incidents by focusing on drivers. The human factor relates to aspects of risk that are controlled by people, for example, whether or not people follow driving rules, their attitude and behavior while driving, and so on. Furthermore, road userś perception of risk influences their driving behavior. As a result, this study investigates the key factors that affect drivers’ risk perception. A survey involving a Stated Preference experiment was created to collect information about drivers’ risk perception of five behavioral factors. The University of Granada (Spain) provided the researchers with student email addresses, which were used to complete a total of 788 online surveys. Additionally, a stratification of the sample was developed for calibrating different Ranking Ordered Logit models, which permit the identification of differences among the key factors influencing the risk perception of the surveyed drivers. The results obtained demonstrate that not following passing rules and distracted driving are the most influential factors on drivers’ risk perception, while speed limits were found to produce a low impact on drivers’ risk perception. Moreover, modelś results show some interesting differences in risk perceptions of drivers of differing gender and driving experience.