Transcript Document

Psychometric Profiling of
Driver Behaviour
Is it any use?
Professor Craig Jackson
Prof of Occupational Health Psychology
Head of Psychology
BCU
Research Director
Health Research Consultants
Outline
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History of behavioural profiling
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Relative usefulness
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Applicability to driver behaviour
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Development of a Psychometric Tool
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Behavioural Profiling - observations of Drive-Thrus and unsafe driving
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Preliminary Psychometric Profiling Results
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Conclusions
Behavioural Profiling
Offender Profiling generally refers to:
1. process of using. . .
2. . . .all available information . . .
3. . . . about a crime . . .
4. . . . a crime scene . . .
5. . . . and a victim . . .
6. . . . to compose a profile of. . .
7. . . .the (as yet) unknown perpetrator
History of Offender Profiling
Origins difficult to pin down
Spectrum of offending – from petty through to major
Established 1970s
FBI’s Behavioural Support Unit (now the Investigative Support Unit)
“Behavioural Profiles” developed by James Brussel (1956)
in hunt for Con Edison bomber in New York
Robert Brittain asked by CID to provide behavioural profile of “Bible John”
killer in Glasgow in late 1960s
Mechanics of Behavioural Profiling
FBI used extensive interviews with 36 convicted serial killers
Belief that personality of offender could be gleaned from 5 areas:
1. Crime scene
2. Nature of crimes
3. Forensic evidence
4. Medical examination of victim
5. Victim characteristics
Useful for deliberate offending
How useful for accidents and non-intentional
offences in driving?
1,2,3 and possibly 5 could be of use
A note about “offender types”
Offender types traditionally split into 2 groups:
Organised vs Disorganised
Can this be applied to drivers?
Personality types:
Extravert vs Introvert
Sanguine vs Phlegmatic
Is Behavioural Profiling Useful?
Limited (if any) success
Two criticisms of profiling behaviour
1) Often based on small data numbers / limited samples
2) Profiles are too vague to be successful / specific
The Best Predictor of Future Behaviour is Past Behaviour
Recidivism of Driving Activity
Example of Profiling and the BTK case
Serial killer in Kansas active from 1974 to 2005
Murdered 10 people from 1974 – 1991 (caught in 2005)
Variety of profiles based on crime scene analysis were summarised as:
Example of Profiling and the BTK case
“Look for an American male with a possible connection to the military.
His IQ will be above 105. He will like to masturbate, and will be aloof and
selfish in bed. He will drive a decent car. He will be a ‘now’ person. He
won’t be comfortable with women. But he may have women friends. He
will be a lone wolf. But he will be able to function in social settings…he
will be either, never married, divorced or married, and if he is married his
wife will be younger or older. He may or may not live in a rental, and
might be lower class, upper lower class, lower middle class or middle
class. And he will be crazy like a fox, as opposed to being mental.”
Gladwell (2007)
Why bother in Profiling unsafe driver Behaviour?
Violent sexual offenders
Unsafe drivers
Rare in population
Covert activity
Rarely occurs
Will always be pursued
Severe penalties if caught
Inconsistent with usual persona
Culturally vilified
Common in population
Overt activity
Commonly occurs
Will often be ignored
Non-severe penalties
Consistent with usual persona
Culturally acceptable (some)
Easier to measure & profile Unsafe Drivers than Violent Sexual Offenders
Who are the offending drivers?
Behavioural Profiling and Unsafe Driving
“Look for a British citizen with an average IQ, although it
could be substantially higher or lower than average. The
unsafe driver will be a male or possibly female, who may be
married or un-married, divorced or widowed. He or she may
drive a decent car, but it may also be low-end of the market.
The unsafe driver will have a good job, although s/he may be
unemployed or even self-employed…
… they will definitely be driving something with 4 wheels.”
Method #1
Psychometric Testing of Drivers
Literature review
Develop pilot surveys (9 versions) measuring variety of factors:
e.g. sex, age, mileage, attitudes, personality, risk taking, alertness,
health, parental influence, in-car technology, perceived skills
Several hundred respondents (non-pro drivers) from varied sample
Baseline data with Manchester Driver Behaviour questionnaire
Find associations with scores on MDB
Give weightings to factors associated with good / bad MDB scores
Use traffic light system to suggest need for driver re-training
Method #2
Field Observations
Test principles of behavioural profiling
Can drivers exhibiting unsafe driving behaviours (UDBs) be profiled?
Several observations in a single fast food chain in UK
Summertime
All covert
All without permission
Used same 2 researchers
Field Observations
Recorded details of all vehicles exiting car park during observations:
1. Drive-Thru versus Eat-in customers
2. Vehicle type
3. Sex
4. Passengers
5. UDBs
eating
drinking
phone use
no seatbelt
no indicators
poor traffic entry
Field Observations
Field Observations
Field Observations
Remote / Isolated Working
Field operatives Sales
Drivers
Lack of immediate assistance
illness accidents
safety
Social workers
District nurses
Filling stations
Home workers
Receptionists
Cleaners
Janitors
Drivers
Shops
Security
Teachers
Engineers
Field Observations - Results
672 vehicles observed
402 drive-thru
(59.8%)
270 eat-in
(40.2%)
Eating
Drinking
Using phone
No seatbelt
No signals
Entering traffic badly
23%
6.0%
2.0%
11%
71%
10.6%
Total UDB score
1.25 (±0.7)
0.82 (±0.6)
0.00
“Unsafe driving”
“Unsafe driving”*
84.8%
46.0%
70.7%
14.4%
0.00
0.00
*ignoring “no signals” misdemeanor
0.3%
0.0%
2.0%
7.0%
65%
6.6%
P-value
0.00
0.00
1.00
0.08
0.08
0.07
Field Observations - Results
672 vehicles observed
417 Male
(62%)
255 Female
(38%)
Eating
Drinking
Using phone
No seatbelt
No signals
Entering traffic badly
11.9%
3.5%
1.9%
11.7%
75%
9.5%
Total UDB score
1.25 (±0.7)
0.82 (±0.6)
0.00
“Unsafe driving”
“Unsafe driving”*
83.4%
34.2%
72.1%
31.7%
0.00
0.50
*ignoring “no signals” misdemeanor
17.2%
3.5%
2.3%
5.4%
60%
8.2%
P-value
0.05
1.00
0.90
0.00
0.00
0.55
Field Observations Conclusions
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All Fast food customers drive fairly poorly upon exiting
Signalling
Seatbelt use
Entering traffic
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Eating & Drinking significantly worse in Drive-thru customers
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Phone use
Seatbelt use
Signalling
Traffic entry
equally poor between Drive-thru / Eat-in customers
78% of Cars were Unsafe
87% of Vans were Unsafe
not sig. different between vehicle types
If producing a gross behavioural profile of unsafe drivers
based on observations of crime scenes (fast food outlets),
we are looking for . . . .
Field Observations Conclusions
Culprits
Love affair with car - food – convenience is increasing
Culprits
Conclusion
Behavioural Profiling inaccurate, unreliable & subjective
Psychometric testing more reliable
Psychometric testing takes time, patience, & cost to get it right
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Cheap to administer
Can be computerized
Easy to complete / self-completion
Simple to score
Objective
Easily comparable