The influence of age and gender of student motorcycle riders on traffic violations and accidents using a structural equation model

Abstract

During the last three years, traffic accidents in Mataram City- Lombok have increased significantly. Interestingly, most of the accidents were involved high school motorcyclist. This study aims to investigate the influence of age and gender of student motorcycle riders on traffic violations and accidents, which represents a city with moderate growth. The investigation was conducted using a questionnaire survey, in which the data were collected from 394 students covering eighteen high schools. The model developed consists of behavioral, violation and accident latent variables. Behavioral constructs are comprised of five observed variables, the violation constructs consist of three observed variables, and accident constructs have two observed variables. It was found that 51.53% from 87.5% of the student's motorcycle riders did not have the proper riding license, whom has age under 17 years old and had been involved in traffic accidents. The study was indicated a significant relationship between student riding behavior to traffic violations, and between traffic violations to accidents. Gender and age show differences in the significance (chi-square) values between riding behaviors relationship to traffic violations and accidents too.