Why do drivers exceed speed limits

Yannis, George; Louca, Georgia; Vardaki, Sophia; Kanellaidis, George · 2013 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1007/s12544-013-0097-x

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Summary

This study investigates the factors influencing drivers’ attitudes toward and self-reported behavior regarding exceeding speed limits across different road types. Motivated by the persistent prevalence of speeding as a primary cause of traffic accidents despite established safety measures, the research aims to identify specific relationships between driver characteristics, opinions, and speeding behavior. The authors hypothesize that these relationships remain consistent across European countries, necessitating a detailed analysis of variables such as demographics, vehicle specifications, and social attitudes to inform better speed management regulations. The methodology relies on data from the SARTRE 3 survey, which collected responses from approximately 1,000 drivers in each of 23 European countries. The dataset comprised 55 questions covering personal characteristics, driving experience, and attitudes toward road safety. The researchers employed log-linear analysis to develop four distinct statistical models corresponding to motorways, main roads, country roads, and built-up area roads. Variables were recoded into categorical formats to facilitate modeling, including age groups, annual kilometrage, gender, engine capacity, beliefs about other drivers’ speeding, enjoyment of driving fast, and experiences with penalties or enforcement. The modeling process prioritized achieving a balance between model complexity and goodness of fit, ensuring the models accurately reflected the distribution of the dependent variable (self-reported speeding). The results indicate that the belief that other drivers exceed speed limits is the strongest predictor of speeding behavior across all four road types. For motorways, significant factors included enjoyment of driving fast, high annual kilometrage, male gender, and high engine capacity. On main roads, younger age and high annual kilometrage were significant, with gender showing significant interactions rather than direct effects. For country roads, the model highlighted the importance of prior penalties for speeding, signaling others about police traps, and expectations of enforcement, alongside age and engine capacity. Notably, drivers who had previously been fined were more likely to speed again on country roads, and younger drivers were more prone to speeding if they perceived others as speeding. The models achieved high goodness-of-fit statistics, confirming the robustness of these relationships. The significance of this study lies in its detailed breakdown of speeding determinants by road type, revealing that while social perception of other drivers’ behavior is a universal factor, other influences vary by context. For instance, enforcement expectations and prior penalties are critical for country roads but less so for motorways. These findings suggest that speed management strategies should be tailored to specific road environments rather than applying a uniform approach. Understanding these nuanced relationships can help policymakers design more effective regulations and enforcement measures that address the specific psychological and social drivers of speeding behavior in different traffic contexts.

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Topics

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• speed choice
• cultural cross national
• sex gender

Information type

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• Empirical Findings: observational prevalence
• Theoretical Contribution: theory or model