Investigating the Social Factors Affecting Drivers' Lawlessness and Disobedience to Police Orders

Breaking the law by drivers and disobeying the police order is always one of the most important social issues in all societies. The present study aims to investigate the social factors affecting drivers' lawlessness and disobedience to police orders.

This study made use of a causal-comparative research design. The statistical population of the present study included all offending drivers in West Azerbaijan province who due to their negative score exceeded the permissible level (30 and above), their licenses or vehicles were confiscated by the provincial traffic police in the period from November to January 2020 and have been referred to provincial traffic police. The sample was 120 offending drivers who were selected by the convenience sampling method.Also, 120 non-offending drivers (comparison group) were selected as a comparison group, who were matched with offending drivers in terms of driving history, type of vehicle (light-heavy), and age. To collect the data of this study, the questionnaires social support, social capital (2000),social participation (1393), social anomie (1395), and feelings of anomie (2011) were used.

The findings showed that on the one hand, there is no significant difference between drivers with and without lawlessness behavior in social support and social capital. But there is a significant difference between drivers with and without lawlessness behavior in social participation, social control, and social anomia.

The results showed that social participation, social support, and social anomia play an important role in the occurrence of the phenomenon of drivers' lawlessness and disobedience to police orders. Therefore, politicians and legislators are suggested to prevent the occurrence of illegal driving by providing social control, providing opportunities to increase citizen participation in society, reducing the feeling of social chaos of citizens, and therefore providing the ground for citizens to obey the laws.