Modeling on the Likelihood of Driving Errors Due to Distracted Driving Behaviour (DDB) Associated with Mobile Phone Usage in Malaysia

• Main Author: Lee, Melissa May Syn
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) 2019
• Subjects: TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26786/1/Melissa.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26786/
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

The use of mobile phone while driving has become an addiction in today’s society which leads to the increase of mobile phone-related road crashes. As such, the research into mobile phone-related distractions have attracted much attention and become increasingly prominent. Although it has been found that this behaviour leads to driving errors, the relationship between different types of mobile phone usage and the different categories of driving errors such as road violations (RV), cognitive errors (CE) and action errors (AE) requires in-depth exploration, at least in the Malaysian context. Thus, this research aimed to examine the likelihood of driving errors due to distracted driving behaviour (DDB) associated with mobile phone usage in Malaysia. Through a self-administered questionnaire, the data obtained from 624 respondents were analysed. The results provided evidence that DDB, regardless of making phone calls or texting, was significantly affecting RV, CE and AE. For making a phone call while driving, binary logistic regression results revealed that the factors that influenced the respondents to perform red-light running (RV) are the frequency of usage (very frequently), occupation (sales/marketing) and traffic conditions (driving on a straight road). The lane excursion (CE) is influenced by the following: occupation (accounting/finance and building/construction) and driving experience, whilst for the factors which lead to the failure in indicating when turning (AE) are occupation (arts/media/communications), traffic conditions (driving on a straight road and slow moving traffic) and driving experience. Meanwhile, for texting while driving, the following are associated with the increased likelihood of red-light running (RV): frequency of usage (very frequently, fairly often and on a few occassions), traffic conditions (driving on a straight road) and occupation (sales/marketing). Besides, it was also found that factors such as frequency of usage (very frequently, fairly often, on a few occasions) and driving experience are related to CE (lane excursions), whereas another CE (brake late and hard) is affected by the frequency of usage (very frequently, fairly often and on a few occasions). Lastly, AE (fail to indicate when turning) is associated with traffic conditions (driving on a straight road), occupation (sales/marketing) and traffic conditions (slow-moving traffic). Hence, it can be concluded that driving can lead to more driving errors compared to making a phone call. Evidently, the findings provide a useful insight on the DDB associated with mobile phone usage in order to deploy more effective prevention strategies and treatments, besides providing a platform for future research.