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• The moderating effect of driving skills on the traffic climate-driver behaviors relationship was investigated. • In Turkey, both perceptual motor skills and safety skills moderated the majority of the relationships. • In China, only safety skills moderated some of the relationships. • There are both cultural differences and similarities in the moderating effect of driving skills. Introduction: While road traffic accidents and fatalities are a worldwide problem, the rates of road traffic accidents and fatalities show differences among countries. Similarly, driver behaviors, traffic climate, and their relationships also show differences among countries. The aim of the current study is to investigate the moderating effect of driving skills on the relationship between traffic climate and driver behaviors by country. (Turkey and China). Method: There were 294 Turkish drivers and 292 Chinese drivers, and they completed the Traffic Climate Scale, the Driving Skills Inventory, and the Driver Behavior Questionnaire. The moderated moderation analyses were conducted with Hayes PROCESS tool on SPSS. Results: The results showed that safety skills moderated the relationship between internal requirements and violations both in Turkey and China. Safety skills also moderated the relationship between internal requirements and errors only in China and the relationship between functionality and violations in Turkey. Perceptual-motor skills moderated the relationships between external affective demands and errors, and also the relationship between internal requirements and positive driver behaviors in Turkey. It can be inferred that driving skills has different influences on traffic climate-driver behaviors relationship in different cultures and there might be cultural differences in the evaluation of drivers' own driving skills. Practical Applications: Among driving skills, safety skills have a more critical role to increase road safety by decreasing number of violations. Interventions to increase safety skills of drivers might be promising for road safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The relationships between traffic climate and driver behaviors were examined cross-culturally. • External affective demands and aberrant driver behaviors were positively related in Turkey and China. • External affective demands and positive driver behaviors were negatively related in Turkey and China. • Violations were negatively related to functionality in Turkey and negatively related to internal requirements in China. • The patterns of relationships might show both similarities and differences between countries. Road traffic accidents/fatalities and driver behaviors show regional differences. It is assumed that the perceived traffic climate in a given context is closely related to driver behaviors. In the current study, this assumption was tested cross-culturally for the first time. The aim was to compare the perceived traffic climate and driver behaviors between Turkey and China. Also, the relationships between traffic climate and driver behaviors in Turkey and China were investigated. In the study, there were 292 drivers aged between 21 and 64 years from China and 294 drivers aged between 19 and 61 from Turkey. The results revealed that Turkish drivers perceived their traffic climate higher in internal requirements and lower in external affective demands and functionality than Chinese drivers. Among driver behaviors, Turkish drivers reported higher numbers of violation and lower numbers of error than Chinese drivers. Perceiving traffic climate as externally demanding was positively related to aberrant driver behaviors (i.e., violations and errors) and negatively related to positive driver behaviors in both Turkey and China. Functionality was negatively related to violations in Turkey, and internal requirements were negatively related to violations in China. In both Turkey and China, external affective demands and functionality were closely related to driver behaviors and might be critical dimensions in road traffic safety. The interventions to improve road traffic safety should be planned based on the differences among cultures. Based on the differences, it might be plausible to suggest that more functional traffic is desired to increase road safety in Turkey, whereas higher internal requirements are important to increase road safety in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]