Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Accident Analysis and Prevention journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aap The relationship between the demographic, personal, and social factors of Malaysian motorcyclists and risk taking behavior at signalized intersections Muhamad Nazri Borhan a,b, ⁎ , Ahmad Nazrul Hakimi Ibrahim b ,Affan Aziz b , Muhamad Razuhanfi Mat Yazid a,b a Civil Engineering Programme, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, UKM, Bangi, Selangor 43600, Malaysia b Smart and Sustainable Township Research Centre, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, UKM, Bangi, Selangor 43600, Malaysia ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Risk-taking behavior Motorcyclists Motorcyclists’ behavior Signalized intersection Demographic factor Social factor ABSTRACT In the context of road safety, risk-taking is undoubtedly one of the main contributory factors in road accidents. The actual forces which influence individuals to take such risks, nevertheless, are still not fully understood. To address this, this study was therefore conducted to investigate the relationship of the demographic, personal, and social factors of motorcyclists, with a specific focus on their risk-taking behavior at signalized intersections in Malaysia. This study adopted the quantitative method using cross-sectional questionnaire surveys and involved 251 respondents. The demographic factors were analyzed using the t-test and an ANOVA Scheffe Post-Hoc test, while the motorcyclists’ personal and social characteristics were analyzed with multiple linear regression. The findings indicate that the individuals who were greater risk takers at signalized intersections were teenage motorcyclists (16–25 years old) who had finished their education before taking their high school diploma, and who also received a lower than average monthly income from private sector firms. The actual experience of accidents was also shown to be positively related to this risk-taking behavior. In addition, in term of personal and social factors, results showed that, for these individuals, there was a significant difference between the strength of peer influence and that of parental and spouse guidance. However, there was no significant difference in the risk-taking behavior of Malaysian motorcyclists riding at signalized intersections for the following factors: be- tween genders, in terms of accident involvement, in terms of enforcement of traffic regulations, and prevention steps and confidence level after being involved in an accident. 1. Introduction Currently, road accidents are, universally, a major cause of injury- related fatalities (Hongsranagon et al., 2011). Statistics show that while approximately two million people around the world die every year, as many as 3000 people die daily because of road accidents (Dapilah et al., 2016). The World Health Organisation (WHO) (2004) reported that 85% of this daily tragedy occurs in low and middle-income countries. According to Masuri et al. (2012), accidents are not caused by a single factor, but are the results of a combination of several factors, among which are environmental elements (Bergel-Hayat et al., 2013; Edwards, 2002; Theofilatos and Yannis, 2014), characteristics of infrastructure (Coevering et al., 2016; Vieira Gomes, 2013), type of vehicle (Haque et al., 2010), and human behavior (Chen, 2009; Edwards, 2002). Following rapid economic growth and motorization, the motorcycle has become the main mode of transportation in Southern Asian coun- tries such as Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia (Susilo et al., 2015). Both Chen (2009) and Susilo et al. (2015) noted that the mo- torcycle had become a popular mode of transportation mainly because of its flexibility, low cost, and maneuverability in heavy traffic condi- tions which are typical of this region. This is no different in Malaysia, where the popularity of the motorcycle is clearly evident, albeit at the cost of an excessively high number of accidents which cause injuries and deaths. Statistics reported by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) (see Fig. 1) show that the number of accidents in- volving motorcyclists is very high compared to accidents involving other modes of transportation, including the bus, car, lorry, and the bicycle. Currently, more than 50% of the road accident fatalities in Malaysia involve motorcyclists (Abdul Manan and Várhelyi, 2015). The increasing number of accidents involving motorcycles has https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2018.09.004 Received 12 May 2017; Received in revised form 27 July 2018; Accepted 4 September 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Smart and Sustainable Township Research Centre, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, UKM, Bangi, Selangor 43600, Malaysia. E-mail address: mnazri_borhan@ukm.edu.my (M.N. Borhan). Accident Analysis and Prevention 121 (2018) 94–100 0001-4575/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T