Understanding electric scooter safety through driver's lens using protection motivation theory

Drivers significantly contribute to electric scooter (e-scooter) rider's safety, but the literature is devoid of any evidence of how drivers behave around e-scooters. Understanding driver's behavioural intentions will allow devising evidence-based recommendations to enhance e-scooter safety. Advancing nascent vehicle-e-scooter safety literature, this study presents a novel Protection Motivation Theory to develop a theoretical framework to examine driver's threat and coping appraisals' association with intentions to adopt cautious driving behaviours around e-scooters. Collecting data from 474 licensed drivers and developing a partial least squares-structural equation model, we test several hypotheses to understand driver's perspectives of sharing the road with e-scooters. Results suggest that perceived severity and response efficacy are positively associated with cautious driving intentions. Perceived vulnerability is negatively associated with protection intentions, whereas self-efficacy does not influence cautious driving intentions. Further, prior e-scooter riding experience moderates the relationship between perceived vulnerability and cautious driving intentions. Importance-performance analysis suggests that interventions enhancing coping appraisal (response efficacy) should be prioritised and complemented with fear-appeal campaigns. Overall, the study addresses a critical gap at the intersection of driver psychology and e-scooter safety by highlighting the role of appropriate infrastructure design and the adoption of emerging technologies that can help reduce risks.