Attitudes towards traffic safety, driving behaviour and accident involvement among the Norwegian public

Abstract

The present study aims at identifying determinants of risk behaviour and accident involvement in traffic. The results are based on a self-completion questionnaire survey carried out among a representative sample of Norwegian drivers drawn from the driver's licence register. The data was collected in year 2000 and 2001 (n=2614). The questionnaire included measures of attitudes, risk behaviour and involvement in accidents and near accidents. The results showed that attitudes towards traffic safety issues influenced involvement in risk behaviour in traffic, especially attitudes towards rule violations and speeding. Risk behaviour had an effect on involvement in near accidents and accidents. Variations in attitudes and risk behaviour were related to age and gender.

Driver Attitude Towards Traffic Safety Violations and Risk Taking Behaviour in Kumasi: The Gender and Age Dimension

“…Romano et al (2012) also identified male drivers to be more likely to be involved in impaired driving and alcohol-related crashes than females. Iversen and Rundmo (2004) revealed that there was a tendency for younger respondents and male respondents to show more negative attitudes towards safety and engage in more 'non-ideal' behaviours in traffic than others do. Yagil (1998) investigated gender and age-related differences in attitudes towards traffic laws and traffic violations and found out that the male drivers and younger drivers reported a lower level normative motivation to comply with traffic laws and a higher commission of traffic violations compared to females and older drivers.…”

“…This attitude-behaviourtraffic safety relationship has been an old phenomenon that has been widely analysed with theories such as the Theory of Reasoned Action and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) in developed countries (Parker et al, 1992;Iversen and Rundmo, 2004;Eiksund, 2009;Forward, 2009b). Attitudes have often been defined to mean tendencies to evaluate an object with some degree of favour or disfavor, expressed in affective, cognitive or behavioral responses (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993).…”

“…Violations consist of a complex category of errors and are categorized as behaviors (either deliberate or unintentional) that deviate from accepted procedures, standards, and rules (Stanton and Salmon, 2009). Various studies conducted in high income countries (Parker et al, 1992(Parker et al, , 1995Iversen and Rundmo, 2004;Eiksund, 2009;Stanton and Salmon, 2009;Nordfjaern et al, 2011) indicated that attitudes towards traffic safety are significant predictors of driver behaviours. Using results from a Driver Behaviour Questionnaire, Parker et al (1995) showed that self reported driver violations are good predictors of driver involvement in accidents.…”

“…Forward (2009b) revealed that the TPB behaviour was able to predict drivers´ intention to commit two driving violations: speeding in an urban area and dangerous overtaking. Iversen and Rundmo (2004) analysed the relationship between attitudes, risky behaviour and accident involvement and concluded that attitudes contribute to the prediction of behaviour. They found that risky behaviour had an inf luence on both involvement in near accidents and involvement in accidents, and explained a 21% of the total variance.…”

“…There is documented evidence indicating that driver behaviour plays a key role in traffic safety as it is important in traffic accident prevention (Parker et al, 1995;Evans, 1996). Attitudes have been revealed to be significant predictors of driver behaviour in high-income countries and have also been identified to indirectly affect involvement in traffic accidents (Iversen and Rundmo, 2004;Iversen, 2004;Rakauskas et al, 2007). In Ghana however, studies have revealed that attitudes are an insignificant predictor of risky driving behaviour (Lund, 2006;Lund and Rundmo, 2009).…”