Response to commentary on "The Driver Behaviour Questionnaire as a predictor of accidents: A meta-analysis"

A commentary on our previously published meta-analysis about the predictive validity of the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) raised a number of points. These points do not dispute the quantitative results as such, but suggest that our introduction and discussion overly favor the DBQ and are incomplete in a number of ways. The commentary targeted the following topics: common method variance, intercorrelations of different instruments, accident data validity, correcting for measurement error, correcting for exposure, and missing studies. Some of these points, such as the risk of common method variance (CMV) when self-reported data are intercorrelated, are valid albeit already dealt with in our article. For most of the points, however, we show that the commentary fails to effectively synthesize the existing evidence. Here we provide new empirical results on the importance of correcting for measurement error and show that the DBQ-accident correlation is robust to exposure. It is concluded that the commentary raised some valid points but changes nothing to our conclusions. We are pleased that af Wahlberg and Dorn have kindly appraised our meta-analysis as a welcome contribution. Although they do not dispute our quantitative results and main conclusions as such, they do regard parts of our introduction and discussion as overly in favor of the DBQ and incomplete ill a number of ways. Their commentary raises several points that we obviously agree with, since we have already presented them in our article. Their other points appear to be slanted against the DBQ in line with their earlier work in which they assert, "the world's most popular driver questionnaire is unvalidated" (at Wahlberg, 2009, p. 46). Below we respond to each comment.