Mojtaba Moharrer - PhD Researcher, ITS, University of Leeds UK

This study introduces and discusses a new method for finding drivers’ level of Overconfidence by first assessing their level of perceived skill and comparing that with their level of actual skill. Two issues exist regarding past studies in the area of overconfidence: first, most studies have assessed overconfidence only through questionnaires. While questionnaires can provide information on participants’ level of perceived skill, questionnaires cannot provide information on participants’ level of actual skill which is a vital measure for assessing overconfidence. The second issue is that there is ambiguity with regard to the terms used on questionnaires for comparison with a baseline driver, terms such as average driver . In response to the first issue, this paper argues that using questionnaire alone cannot provide us with the level of overconfidence. However using a well-designed and clear questionnaire that assesses drivers’ perception of their level of driving skill on its own and then drivers’ comparison of themselves to other drivers can provide us with the Perceived Skill Score (PSS). In response to the second issue, the new method designed for this study eliminates the need to use a baseline driver. While this study provides an improved method for assessing Perceived Skill it is worth mentioning that at this stage, having the questionnaire results only, it is not possible to find an individual’s level of overconfidence. With this in mind, this paper will present an examination of drivers’ Perceived Skill in two sample groups, Iran and the UK.

Overconfidence, Driving behaviour, Driving skill, Questionnaire, Driving Simulator