The conditions of respect of rules in young and elderly drivers: An exploratory study

This study is concerned with the theoretical field of social representations and conditionality of norms. The aim is to study the perception of driving norms by structuring them around individual and group behaviours. We propose to evaluate driving conditionality with the questionnaire based on conditional scenarios. The tool has been proposed to 40 young drivers and 48 elderly drivers. Results show that the driving representation is conditional for the 2 groups, except with the scenario of wearing seat belt. The more conditional scenarios are the same for the 2 groups (scenarios of speed limit and amber light), with higher scores of conditionality for young drivers. The representation of the driving shows that with the system of legal norms (Highway Code), there is a system of social norms related to the actual practices of the users. This study illustrates an important aspect of road safety: the social perception of rules and its impact on driver behaviour.