**Abstract**

An empirically verified fact is that the majority of traffic accidents occur as a result of risky behaviours that drivers assume, more or less, voluntarily. Drivers are not aware of the perception of risk and the subjective perception of control that we believe we have. We have delimitated the characteristics of a group of optimistic offender drivers, which reveal, on the hand, a great lack of understanding of the true impact that external factors can have on driving and; on the other hand, they tend to overestimate their abilities and overconfident in their ability to avoid accidents. In addition, these drivers do not usually experience negative emotions when they fail. All this, together is what increases the probability of suffering an accident. The consideration of the different cognitive profiles in the perception of the risk or challenge when facing potential traffic situations may provide us with a better understanding of the true nature of offending drivers. The need to carry out experimental studies using new assessment instruments (i.e. Eye tracking, Bio-Feedback, evoked potentials, etc.) can facilitate a better understanding of the cognitive processes that explain the attitudes and behaviors of drivers; and therefore, achieve a lower rate of car accidents.

**Keywords:** optimism, prefactual thinking, contrafactual thinking, road safety, offender drivers
