Exploration of Social-Psychological Factors Leading to Distracted e-Bike Riding Among Delivery Workers
DOI: 10.1177/03611981231188371
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Summary
This study investigates the social-psychological factors contributing to distracted electric bicycle (e-bike) riding among delivery workers in China, a population increasingly critical to urban logistics but underexplored in traffic safety research. With over 13 million delivery workers in China relying on e-bikes to meet tight delivery windows, non-riding-related tasks (NRRTs) such as phone usage are common and pose significant safety risks. The authors address the gap in literature regarding the specific drivers of these voluntary distractions by applying the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework, which posits that behavior is influenced by attitudes, social norms, and perceived control. The researchers conducted a survey of 150 delivery workers (146 males, 4 females; mean age 27.25) in Guangzhou, China. Participants were recruited via face-to-face interaction and were required to be officially registered with major delivery platforms. The questionnaire assessed self-reported engagement in six specific NRRTs (e.g., operating phones, holding calls, wearing earphones, chatting) and measured TPB constructs: attitudes, descriptive norms (perceived prevalence among peers), injunctive norms (approval from important others), and perceived behavior control. The study also evaluated participants’ awareness of traffic regulations regarding phone use. Statistical analyses included ordinal logistic regression and Spearman’s rank correlations to examine relationships between these factors and distraction engagement. Results indicated that technology-based NRRTs were more prevalent than non-technology-based ones, with manually operating the phone being the most frequent distraction. Younger workers exhibited more positive attitudes toward NRRTs and perceived higher prevalence among colleagues compared to older peers. TPB factors were significantly correlated with self-reported engagement. Specifically, positive attitudes and higher perceived behavior control significantly predicted increased NRRT engagement. Descriptive norms significantly influenced engagement in wearing earphones, while injunctive norms significantly predicted engagement in holding phone calls, reading roadside ads, and chatting. Notably, awareness of traffic regulations had limited explanatory power for overall engagement and was counterintuitively associated with increased engagement in dwelling on roadside incidents and wearing earphones. The findings suggest that distracted riding among delivery workers is driven largely by social-psychological factors rather than regulatory knowledge. The strong influence of attitudes and perceived norms implies that countermeasures focusing solely on regulation enforcement may be insufficient. Instead, interventions should target the social environment and individual perceptions of safety and control. The study highlights the high-risk profile of this demographic—young, male, and often lower-income—and underscores the need for targeted strategies to mitigate the safety threats posed by voluntary distractions in e-bike delivery operations.
Key finding
Attitudes and perceived behavior control significantly predict self-reported engagement in distracted riding behaviors among delivery workers, whereas awareness of traffic regulations has limited effects.
Methodology
survey
Sample size: 150
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-28 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-06 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| enrich | skipped | — | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-04 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: observational prevalence
- Theoretical Contribution: theory or model