Elsevier

Accident Analysis & Prevention

Volume 50, January 2013, Pages 1112-1117
Accident Analysis & Prevention

Gauging popular support for traffic safety in the United States

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2012.09.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

Recent concerns have been raised about the United States’ “Traffic Safety Culture.” While the “safety culture” construct has been studied in occupational settings, it appears that no assessments of national traffic safety culture have been published in the scientific literature.

Purpose

To assess whether current public attitudes and behaviors support traffic safety advancement in the United States.

Methods

A mail survey containing items that had been endorsed by traffic safety experts was fielded to a nationally representative sample of U.S. households in 2009. Completed surveys were returned by 46% of recipients.

Results

Mean ratings indicated that respondents support a majority of the items that were developed to reflect positive Traffic Safety Culture. They “neither agreed nor disagreed,” however, with 43% of pro-safety statements. The item that was mostly highly rated by subjects suggested that “the whole key to road safety” lies in educating drivers. When items were grouped by topic, those which focused on the control of alcohol-impaired driving were most popular. Female respondents and older respondents demonstrated more support for traffic safety advancement.

Conclusions

The U.S. public appears to be favorably disposed to traffic safety but their support is not uniform across topics or population subgroups. Their responses also suggest they may not know or like some of the evidence-based recommendations being promoted by traffic safety experts. Future research should explore the bases for public resistance to policies and practices that have been shown to save lives.

Highlights

► A traffic safety survey was mailed to a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. ► Respondents endorsed most pro-safety items, especially those that involved alcohol-impaired driving. ► Respondents neither agreed nor disagreed, however, with 43% of pro-safety statements. ► Our sample appeared to hold an exaggerated perception of education's power to improve road safety. ► Women and older respondents rated pro-safety statements more highly.

Introduction

The casual reader might ask, “Doesn’t everyone support traffic safety?” To professionals working to reduce road-related injuries in the United States, however, the answer is less obvious. Several recent initiatives have been launched out of concern for America's “Traffic Safety Culture.”

In 2007, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety published a compendium of papers that explored this topic. The foundation was hoping that those responsible for traffic safety in the United States would follow them on “a new path.” Their stated goal was,

to transform our culture, from one that accepts loss of life and limb as a price of mobility, to one in which elected officials, transportation professionals, and individual citizens expect safety, demand safety, and refuse to accept that an annual casualty count roughly equivalent to the population of Arkansas is a fair price to pay for mobility. (Kissinger, 2007)

Momentum seems to be growing for this approach. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration's initiative to craft a“National Strategy on Highway Safety” emphasizes the importance of achieving “culture change:”

One of the most significant needs is to change Americans’ attitudes toward road safety. There are already programs and technologies that can result in substantial reductions in fatalities; however, those benefits will not be realized as long as the public and elected officials are not willing to pass laws or take the actions needed to implement them (Federal Highway Administration, 2011).

In 2012, the National Academies’ Transportation Research Board launched a new subcommittee that will focus on “Roadway Safety Culture.”

Before scientific attempts could be made to improve the United States’ traffic safety culture, however, the author felt that the construct had to be operationally defined. To that end, she collaborated with the AAA Foundation to develop a survey instrument that would facilitate future Traffic Safety Culture (TSC) assessments. That measurement tool continues to evolve. This report summarizes the results of its first fielding.

Section snippets

Survey development and distribution

No clear consensus emerged from our review of the literature on how the generic “safety culture” construct should be defined or measured. Zhang et al. (2002) went so far as to characterize “safety culture,” as a “concept in chaos.” Rosness (2003) asked if “safety culture” was “yet another buzzword to hide our confusion.” Several survey instruments had been developed, but they focused on worksite settings and were not readily transferable to traffic safety in the public sector (Flin et al., 2000

Sample

Of the 1700 survey packets mailed out, 49.5% were returned. Eighty-eight percent of those contained completed questionnaires. Ten percent were returned unopened, and marked undeliverable by the postal service. Two percent of returns indicated that the recipients did not want to participate. Treating all non-returned questionnaires as additional refusals, a survey response rate of 46% was achieved.

Table 1 displays the demographic make-up of the survey sample, alongside demographic data on the US

Discussion

There have been many surveys of the public dealing with traffic safety topics. Most have measured attitudes and behaviors related to one topic, such as impaired driving, speeding etc. Some focus on multiple subjects (i.e., the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's “Motor Vehicle Occupant Safety Survey,” Advocates for Highway Safety's “Survey of the American People on Highway and Auto Safety”). None to our knowledge, however, used empirical methods (i.e., a Delphi Technique and Factor

Competing interests

None.

Role of the funding source

This work was funded by a grant from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety (AAAFTS). The author designed the study. The AAAFTS reviewed a draft version of the TSC instrument and suggested minor wording changes, which were adopted. It was agreed before this work was carried out that the study results would be submitted for publication in the scientific literature. The sponsor reviewed an early draft of this paper, but did not make any changes to its content.

Disclaimer

This article reflects the views of the author, who is not speaking on behalf of any Federal agency.

Acknowledgement

Dorothy Becher, this study's manager, is to be commended for her high level of performance on this project.

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