An exploration of European road users' safety attitudes towards speeding

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to describe the attitudes and opinions of Europeans on speeding, and compare them amongst countries and based on demographic characteristics as well as to provide a number of recommendations to be used in the effort to reduce speeding and improve road safety. The analysed data were collected within the ESRA project, a joint initiative of research organisations in 17 European countries aiming at collecting comparable (inter)national data on road users' opinions, attitudes and behaviour with respect to road traffic risks. Data from more than 17,000 road users were collected. The speeding aspects analysed concern acceptability of unsafe traffic behaviour related to speeding, self-declared behaviour in traffic, attitudes towards unsafe traffic behaviour, support for road safety policy measures and reported police checks and perceived likelihood of getting caught for speeding.All reported attitudes depend on participants' gender and age. The majority of people who accept driving over the speed limit do not believe that speed limits are set at acceptable levels. The ESRA results are also compared to those of previous similar studies. Finally, key recommendations concerning speeding were formulated, addressed to stakeholders at three different levels namely European level, national/regional level and particular stakeholders.

Kaahaajat: Finnish Attitudes towards Speeding

“…Finnish drivers reported some of the highest prevalence of speeding on motorways, in built up areas, and outside of built-up areas, with the Finnish rates exceeding the averages reported in Europe, Asia, Oceania, North America, and Africa. Similarly, in the 2015 version of the ESRA, Finnish drivers reported the highest rates of speeding with 84% of drivers reporting that they exceeded the speed limit at some stage when driving on motorways in the past 12 months [18].…”

Road Traffic Flow Speed on Rural Roads in Latvia

“…Also, as demonstrated by studies of the subsequent ESRA project, the perceived likelihood of being checked by the police for respecting speed limits varies among the European countries between 11% in Denmark and 55% in France. At the European level, 36% of respondents consider it is likely to be checked by the police for respecting the speed limits on a typical journey (Laiou et al, 2019). However, it should be considered that these results are based on selfreported data and, thus, may have some disadvantages, such as a bias due to the tendency of the respondents to provide a more favourable image of themselves, non-accurate recall or a selective non-response bias.…”

Driven by head or heart? Testing the effect of rational and emotional anti-speeding messages on self-reported speeding intentions

“…Without enforcement one-size-fits-all media campaigns have no or very small effects in terms of reducing the number of MVCs (Hoekstra and Wegman, 2011;Phillips et al, 2011). A considerable number of drivers consider it acceptable to speed and are not willing to change their driving behavior (Holocher and Holte, 2019;Laiou et al, 2021).…”

“…Every 1 % increase in mean speed incurs a 4 % increase in fatal MVC likelihood (WHO, 2018, 45;WHO, 2022). Although speeding is the most common heavily attributed etiological factor associated with MVCs, many drivers still intentionally or unintentionally exceed speed limits, as indicated by international surveys on drivers' attitudes (Holocher and Holte, 2019;Laiou et al, 2021).…”