Relationships between Driver Errors and Delay Discounting in a Simulated Driving Task

The majority of vehicle accidents are attributable to driver error, such as substance use, distractions, fatigue, speeding, and driving experience. Many of these driver errors are also associated with delay discounting, where individuals that excessively devalue a reward are more likely to use substances such as alcohol, cigarettes, and cocaine, and text-while-driving. The current study sought to examine a more direct association between delay discounting and driver error by providing 50 participants with a series of simulated driving tasks, along with measuring their delay discounting rates. A median-split for delay discounting rates showed that participants with high-delay discounting rates made significantly more total errors for simple driving tasks (e.g., braking and one-lane change) early during the simulation, relative to participants with low-delay discounting rates. On the other hand, high-delay discounting participants continued to make more total errors for a more complicated two-lane change driving task after multiple trials, relative to low-delay discounting participants. These results support the idea that delay discounting is a transdisease process that can significantly negatively affect a large range of health-related behaviors, including driver errors. Treatment implications for reducing driver errors are discussed.