Literature review on risky driving videos on YouTube: Unknown effects and areas for concern?

ABSTRACT

Objective: Entry of terms reflective of extreme risky driving behaviors into the YouTube website yields millions of videos. The majority of the top 20 highly subscribed automotive YouTube websites are focused on high-performance vehicles, high speed, and often risky driving. Moreover, young men are the heaviest users of online video sharing sites, overall streaming more videos, and watching them longer than any other group. The purpose of this article is to review the literature on YouTube videos and risky driving.

Methods: A systematic search was performed using the following specialized database sources—Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, ERIC, and Google Scholar—for the years 2005–2015 for articles in the English language. Search words included “YouTube AND driving,” “YouTube AND speeding,” “YouTube AND racing.”

Results: No published research was found on the content of risky driving videos or on the effects of these videos on viewers. This literature review presents the current state of our published knowledge on the topic, which includes a review of the effects of mass media on risky driving cognitions; attitudes and behavior; similarities and differences between mass and social media; information on the YouTube platform; psychological theories that could support YouTube's potential effects on driving behavior; and 2 examples of risky driving behaviors (“sidewalk skiing” and “ghost riding the whip”) suggestive of varying levels of modeling behavior in subsequent YouTube videos.

Conclusions: Every month about 1 billion individuals are reported to view YouTube videos (ebizMBA Guide 2015) and young men are the heaviest users, overall streaming more YouTube videos and watching them longer than women and other age groups (Nielsen 2011). This group is also the most dangerous group in traffic, engaging in more per capita violations and experiencing more per capita injuries and fatalities (e.g., Parker et al. 1995; Reason et al. 1990; Transport Canada 2015; World Health Organization 2015). YouTube also contains many channels depicting risky driving videos. The time has come for the traffic safety community to begin exploring these relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Risky driving
• YouTube
• review
• theories

Funding

This research was partly supported by a grant from AUTO21, a member of the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) Program, which is administered and funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), in partnership with Industry Canada.