The Relationship between the Driver Behavior Questionnaire, Sensation Seeking Scale, and Recorded Crashes: A Brief Comment on Martinussen et al. (2017) and New Data from SHRP2

de Winter, J C F; Dreger, Felix A; Huang, W; Miller, Andrew; Soccolich, Susan A.; Ghanipoor Machiani, Sahar; Engström, Johan A · 2018 · ROSA P / Elsevier

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Summary

This paper addresses the predictive validity of the Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ) and the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS) regarding recorded crashes and driving behavior. The authors critique a previous study by Martinussen et al. (2017), which found no difference in recorded crash rates among driver groups classified by DBQ scores. The authors argue that Martinussen’s null finding was likely due to low statistical power, as only 1.1% of participants were involved in crashes, resulting in too few crash-involved drivers in the “violating unsafe” group to detect significant differences. To provide more robust evidence, the authors analyze new data from the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP2) naturalistic driving study. The study utilized a dataset of 3,215 drivers, filtered to 2,790 participants who drove for at least seven months and 100 miles. DBQ data were available for 2,737 drivers, and SSS scores for 2,781. Principal component analysis identified three DBQ factors: slips, violations, and lapses. The researchers computed Spearman rank-order correlations between these self-report scores, demographic variables, and objective driving metrics, including recorded crashes, near-crashes, and driving style indicators such as hard starts, stops, and turns. The results indicate that DBQ violations and SSS scores correlate significantly with adverse driving behaviors and crash involvement, though the correlations are generally small. DBQ violations showed a moderate correlation with near-crashes (ρ = 0.20) and small but significant correlations with all recorded crashes (ρ = 0.06) and self-reported crashes (ρ = 0.13). In contrast, DBQ slips and lapses showed weak predictive validity for crashes. The SSS exhibited a correlation pattern similar to DBQ violations, with a moderate correlation with near-crashes (ρ = 0.20) and a small correlation with crashes (ρ = 0.10). Additionally, DBQ violations were associated with more aggressive driving styles, such as hard turns (ρ = 0.24). However, the authors caution that while these differences are statistically significant, there is substantial overlap in score distributions between crash-involved and non-crash-involved drivers, limiting practical predictive utility. The study concludes that DBQ violations and sensation seeking are valid indicators of risky driving behavior and near-crash involvement, supporting the theoretical link between self-reported violations and objective safety outcomes. The findings suggest that previous null results regarding crash prediction were likely artifacts of low crash rates rather than a lack of relationship. The authors recommend future research focus on the validity of near-crashes as a proxy for crashes to improve the predictive power of behavioral questionnaires.

Key finding

DBQ violations and Sensation Seeking Scale scores show small correlations with recorded crashes but moderate correlations with near-crashes and adverse driving styles.

Methodology

naturalistic

Sample size: 2737

Provenance

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Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• dbq psychometrics
• sex gender
• human error taxonomy
• incidence prevalence
• sensation seeking
• induced exposure

Information type

What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).

• Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes, observational prevalence
• Methodological Resource: dataset resource