Road safety perspectives among employees of a multinational corporation in urban India: local context for global injury prevention

Abstract

In rapidly developing economies, like urban India, where road traffic injury rates are among the world’s highest, the corporate workplace offers a non-traditional venue for road safety interventions. In partnership with a major multinational corporation with a large Indian workforce, this study aimed to elicit local employee perspectives on road safety to inform a global corporate health platform. The safety attitudes and behaviors of 75 employees were collected through self-report survey and focus groups in the multinational corporation offices in Bangalore and Pune. Analysis of these data uncovered incongruity between employee knowledge of safety strategies and their enacted safety behaviors and identified local preference for interventions and policy-level actions. The methods modeled by this study offer a straightforward approach for eliciting employee perspective for local road safety interventions that fit within a global strategy to improve employee health. Study findings suggest that multinational corporations can employ a range of strategies to improve the road traffic safety of their employees in settings like urban India including: implementing corporate traffic safety policy, making local infrastructure changes to improve road and traffic conditions, advocating for road safety with government partners and providing employees with education and access to safety equipment and safe transportation options.

An exploratory qualitative study of the prevention of road traffic collisions and neurotrauma in India: perspectives from key informants in an Indian industrial city (Visakhapatnam)

“…Participants described the issue of laws not being enforced fairly and equally, for example affluent members of society are generally not penalised for violating the law. Similar findings were reported in other studies from India which also highlighted the issue of police accepting bribes for traffic offences [6,83]. Our study also showed that the violation of traffic laws particularly by law enforcement officials was believed to have a negative influence on the general public.…”

An Exploratory Qualitative Study of the Prevention of Road Traffic Collisions and Neurotrauma in India: Perspectives From Key Informants in an Indian Industrial City (Visakhapatnam)

“…Participants described the issue of laws not being enforced fairly and equally, for example a uent members of society are generally not penalised for violating the law. Similar ndings were reported in other studies from India which also highlighted the issue of police accepting bribes for tra c offences [39,66]. Our study also showed that the violation of tra c laws particularly by law enforcement o cials was believed to have a negative in uence on the general public.…”

Survey Based Road Safety Analysis to Understand the Perspective of the General Public

“…32 In a survey among employees of a multinational corporation in urban India participants perceived that their local road environment was dangerous, there is inconsistent and unreliable enforcement of traffic laws and local traffic authority were viewed as lowpaid and often corrupt. 33 Our survey showed that awareness regarding the current state of road safety in India is limited. A similar survey conducted in a south Indian state showed participants had significantly low awareness with regards to alcohol and driving, use of seat belts and use of mobile phones; nearly two-third of the participants (68%) admitted to have crossed speed limits on multiple occasions.…”