Institute of Transportation, MOTC

       Motorcyclists’ defensive riding is a concept that refers to protecting themselves and other road users. In order to reduce motorcycle-related deaths and injuries, the government has continued to promote the importance of defensive riding. Based on a literature review, this study builds a research model with five constructs—motorcycle riders’ risky riding habits, safety attitudes, riding risks, riding emotions, and defensive riding—in attempting to understand why motorcyclists do not ride defensively.
       The data used in the analysis were collected via snowball sampling. Respondents who used motorcycles were requested to fill in an online questionnaire, and 390 valid questionnaires were received. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis were sequentially conducted using the collected data; then structural equation modeling was used to examine the causal relationships among the constructs. The results indicate that: (1) risky riding habits have a negative impact on defensive riding; (2) safety attitude has a positive impact on defensive riding; (3) riding risk has a positive impact on safety attitudes; (4) riding risk has a negative impact on risky riding habits; (5) riding emotion has a positive impact on safety attitude; (6) riding emotion has a positive impact on riding risk. Hence, it is found that internal factors of risky riding habits, safety attitudes, riding risks, and riding emotions directly and indirectly determine whether motorcycle riders adopt defensive riding behaviors. Moreover, analysis of variance results reveal that defensive riding is significantly higher among riders with experience of traffic accidents, or who have children.