Driving Instructors’ Job Satisfaction, Work Stress, Burnout and Accidents: The Mediating Role of Driver Behaviors

Driver instructors who are exposed to road traffic extensively due to the nature of their jobs have important role in, and contribution to road safety since they try to transfer their knowledge and skills to driver candidates. Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate whether well-being indicators at work (i.e., job satisfaction, work stress, and burnout) affect the number of accidents via driver behaviors (i.e., errors, violations, and slips and lapses) in a sample of driver instructors. A total of 132 driving instructors participated to the study. According to correlation analysis, the number of accidents was associated with all types of aberrant driver behaviors (i.e., errors, violations, and slips and lapses). Job satisfaction and work stress had also significant association with all types of aberrant behaviors; although burnout had significant association with only the errors and slips and lapses. In order to test the indirect effects of well-being indicators at work on the number of accidents via aberrant driver behaviors, a series of bootstrap analyses were conducted. According to the bootstrap results, firstly job satisfaction had significant indirect effects on the number of accidents via errors and violations. Secondly, work stress had significant indirect effects on the number of accidents via errors, violations, and slips and lapses. Finally, burnout had significant indirect effects on the number of accidents via errors and slips and lapses. Findings of this study was discussed by taking the previous studies into consideration