Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
Cohort II: a Study of Learner and Novice Drivers, 2001-2005 was a major six-year study, funded by the Department for Transport, providing an up to date picture of how ‘cohorts’ of learner drivers in Great Britain undertake driver training and testing, and of their subsequent experiences as new drivers. The first questionnaire was the 'learning to drive questionnaire' (LTDQ) to investigate respondents’ experience of learning to drive. It included questions about preparation for both the theory and practical elements of the driving test, including time spent in different types of driving environment and whether this was with an instructor or with a friend/relation. It also included some basic attitude questions. This questionnaire was sent to 8,000 candidates who had applied for their practical test in a selected week each quarter, between November 2001 and August 2005. This was about one-third of candidates in selected weeks, and resulted in 16 cohorts. The second element of the project was to follow the experiences of new drivers in the early part of their driving careers. Respondents to the learning to drive questionnaire who had passed the practical test were sent a questionnaire at six, 12, 24, and 36 months after passing their test. The 'Driving Experience Questionnaire' (DEQ) covered accidents, exposure and offences as well as attitudes and reported behaviour. The repeated questionnaires allowed an accident history to be built up which enabled the tracking of risk as drivers became more experienced. Eight of the 16 cohorts received all four follow-up questionnaires. The remainder did not receive the complete set due to the timescales of the project. For the second edition (June 2015), a new edition of the data was deposited by researchers at the University of Greenwich. The new edition was generated for a grant funded by the Economic and Social Research Council titled: Modelling the development of crash liability and risky driving behaviour in novice drivers (ES/K004565/1) as part of the ESRC's Secondary Data Analysis Initiative. The new edition is a dataset that links the original datasets into a single dataset to assist with any future longitudinal analysis of Cohort II data. The new edition is accompanied by a Variable Names file.
Main Topics:
The main topics included:learning to drivethe practical and theory testsattitudes towards drivingexperiences of novice driversaccidentsoffences
Simple random sample
Postal survey
Self-completion
Psychological measurements
Compilation or synthesis of existing material
