Abstract

Road traffic injuries, as a type of unintentional injury, are resulting from road traffic accidents, which are the leading cause of death all over the world. Among all road user groups, drivers and pedestrians are found to be most vulnerable ones suffering from road traffic injuries. Both driver behaviors and pedestrian behaviors are found to be related to the road traffic accidents. The aim of the present study is investigating the relationship between pedestrian behaviors and driver behaviors. A total number of six hundred seven drivers participated in the study. Participants filled out a questionnaire involving demographic information form, Driver Behavior Questionnaire, and Pedestrian Behavior Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics showed that males showed higher driver aggressive violations, driver ordinary violations, pedestrian transgression, and pedestrian aggressive violations than females. According to the hierarchical regression analyses, all dimensions of pedestrian behaviors were found to be related to all dimensions of driver behaviors. Aberrant pedestrian behaviors were found to be positively related to aberrant driver behaviors and positive pedestrian behaviors were found to be negatively related to aberrant driver behaviors. Positive pedestrian behaviors were found to be positively related to positive driver behaviors. Overall, the results indicated that drivers who express aberrant pedestrian behaviors also express aberrant driver behaviors. The results suggest that countermeasure programs aiming decreasing aberrant driver behaviors should also focus on pedestrian behaviors. Education programs should also include training related to pedestrian behaviors. In this way, the programs will be more effective in terms of decreasing road traffic accidents and road traffic injuries. Since traffic system is a complex and dynamic environment with different road users, it is important to understand the relations and dynamics between different behaviors of different road user groups.