Driver's views and behaviors about safety in China—What do they NOT know about driving?

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Abstract

Driving safety has become an extremely severe problem in China due to rapid motorization. Unless more effective measures are taken, the fatality risk and the total fatalities due to road traffic accidents are expected to continue to increase. Therefore, focus group discussions were conducted to explore driver attitudes and safe driver characteristics. The results were then compared with a similar study conducted with US drivers. Although similarities were found, differences were of more importance. The Chinese drivers concentrate more on driving skills and capabilities, whereas the US drivers concentrate more on practical safe driving guidelines. Then direct field observations were conducted for the Chinese drivers to empirically investigate the issues discovered. The use of safety belts, running lights, headlights, and turn signals were observed to investigate the drivers’ behaviors. Results show that the safety belt use ratio is about 64%, running light use is nearly zero during rainy and snowy weather, headlights use after sunset is substantially delayed, and only about 40% of drivers use turn signals to indicate their intention to change lanes. These findings indicate that the authorities need to take appropriate countermeasures to change the views of the Chinese drivers regarding driving safety and their unsafe driving behaviors. Improvement of training content and methods as well as police enforcement would be recommended.

Introduction

During the past 10 years, the number of vehicles in China has been increasing dramatically, from 9.4 million (M) in 1994 to 20.5 M in 2002, and to over 24 M in 2003. The predicted increase after 2004 is well above 5 M per year (CRTAS, 2004). The total number of miles of freeways and other roads built has increased dramatically and the overall traffic infrastructure has improved substantially. On the other hand, the composition of the driver population has quickly changed from a dominant majority of professional drivers (driving for his/her organization as one's career) to more than half being private drivers (driving for their own use). In the meantime, the rapid increase in the number of novice drivers is becoming a big challenge to driving safety. As a result of these changes, traffic fatalities have become a more severe problem in China, the largest developing country. According to the 2003 report of China Road Traffic Accidents Statistics (CRTAS, 2003), the number of people who died from road traffic accidents was 109,381, with the number of seriously injured five times higher, which is believed to be underestimated due to the economic and cultural situation in China. This fatality number is about 20% of the total traffic fatalities in the whole world each year and the number of fatalities is expected to be even worse due to the rapidly increasing number of vehicles in this country.

If fatalities resulting from tens of millions of two-wheel motorcycles and some tractors are excluded, life loss from four-wheel vehicles and trucks in China in 2002 was 65,216. Approximately in the same time period, deaths in the US numbered 41,821 (AUSTST, 2002) and in Germany 6842 (OTSG, 2004). If you compare these numbers per population and per vehicle, surprising information is revealed. Although the number of fatalities per population (F/P) for China is lower (ChinaF/P:USF/P:GermanyF/P = 1:3.09:1.65), the fatalities per vehicle (F/V) for China is much higher (ChinaF/V:USF/V:GermanyF/V = 16.5:1:0.67). Considering that China is the largest developing country and has the largest population of over 1.3 billion, it can be predicted that the number of vehicles per population (V/P) due to economic growth and motorization will increase much faster than the fatalities per vehicle will decrease (F/V). As a result, unless more effective measures are taken, the fatality risk (the product of F/V and V/P) and the total fatalities due to road traffic accidents are expected to continue increasing for at least 20 years according to the traffic fatalities and economic growth model by Kopits and Cropper (2005). From 1975 to 1998, China's traffic fatality risk increased by 243%, compared with India's (the second largest developing country) which had an increase of 79.3% from 1980 to 1998. It is predicted that in the next 20 years, China will suffer an additional 92% increase in fatalities, compared with 147% in India (Kopits and Cropper, 2005).

The fatality problem is so severe that, although this problem has gained concern from both the Chinese government and the citizens, it is unfortunate that so few research studies on Chinese drivers are available in either international or Chinese journals. Yang et al. (2005) investigated the epidemiological profile of mortality due to injuries in three cities of one Chinese province. In this study, it was found that road traffic accidents were the largest reason for mortality, accounting for 38.5% of the total sample. It was also discovered that the mortality number had been steadily growing during the study period from 1997 to 2001. Xie and Parker (2002) used a social psychological approach to study the determinants of driving violations of Chinese drivers in two Chinese cities. The results suggested that some culturally specific beliefs, including the sense of social hierarchy, tendency to challenge legitimate authority, and belief in interpersonal networks, could be important in determining Chinese drivers’ tendency to commit driving violations. In addition to the international journal papers, a small number of studies about driving safety in China are reported in Chinese language journals, but they still lack focus on the driver's perspective (Jie, 2002, Yang et al., 1997, Yang, 2002, Zhao, 2003).

Prior research literature suggested that some of the most influential factors that are responsible, either independently or in combination, for road accidents are human factors, vehicle, and road environment. Human factors, including perceptual errors, decision errors, and operating errors, were reportedly involved in almost 90% of road accidents and exclusively responsible for almost 60% of the cases (Sabey and Taylor, 1980). Drivers themselves most frequently attribute the main responsibility for accidents to human factors, while unfavorable weather and bad vehicle condition also play a significant role in the cause of road accidents (Beenstock and Gafni, 2000, Karlaftis et al., 2003, SARTRE, 1998). In China, more recently, human factors are involved in 95% of the cases (CRTAS, 2003), according to police reports, that simply categorized the accidents’ reasons into driver and other road users, vehicles, road conditions and weather. So for the current situation in China, it seems most reasonable to first focus on driver behaviors to improve driving safety.

The objective of this research was to understand how Chinese drivers view safe driver characteristics and safe driving behaviors. By using focus group discussions in China and the US and field observations in China, we sought to identify and investigate some of the major safety issues that might be the contributing reasons for the high fatality rate in China. The results of the findings may provide insights into the safety problem and imply some effective countermeasures for improving the driving safety in China, as well as in other developing countries.

Section snippets

Methodology

This study consists of two parts—a focus group and an observational study. In the first part, views of Chinese drivers about safe drivers’ characteristics and behaviors were investigated through focus group discussions. A total of 18 experienced Chinese drivers (male:female = 11:7) who had over 3 years (minimum:maximum:average = 3:20:8.6 years) of active driving experience in the Beijing area were recruited through local newspapers or personal recommendations for the discussion and they were

Results and discussion

The main purpose of the focus group discussion was to compare the main themes obtained in China and the US, including the similarities and the differences. When asked about characteristics of safe drivers, participants of both countries mentioned that obeying the rules, avoiding distraction, good temper and mood, driving defensively, etc. are key characteristics. Age was also mentioned and drivers of both countries mentioned that drivers who are too old or too young are not safe drivers due to

Conclusions

Focus group discussions indicated that the Chinese drivers lack correct understanding of the importance of safe driving practical guidelines, but rather trust more on one's driving skill, experience, capability, and physical condition. Further discussion also indicated that even within the similarities between Chinese drivers and the US drivers, there are still some differences that need concern and further study. Direct field observations empirically showed the current status of how the

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety as one of the projects of the Liberty Mutual Supported Safework Research Program at Tsinghua. The authors wish also to thank David Melton and the graduate students of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory of Tsinghua University for their help in arranging focus group discussions and field observations. Thanks also go to Christian Alexe and Keno Fresemann for their assistance in providing driving accident data for

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