Traffic Safety Cultures and the Safe Systems Approach – Towards a Cultural Change Research and Innovation Agenda for Road Safety (TraSaCu)

Traffic Safety Culture (TraSaCu) aims at developing a cultural approach in road traffic safety research and accident prevention. Traditional approaches to traffic safety shall be complemented by a cultural perspective which has emerged recently in safety research and prevention. Safety culture has been identified as an important factor of road safety as it helps understanding and explaining the typical patterns of risk perception and risk taking that prevail in different national, regional or local traffic systems as well as their relationships with numbers and forms of accidents. A weak safety culture produce higher numbers of accidents which are more severe. A strong safety culture helps reducing the number of accidents as well as mitigating their severity. It strengthens safety relevant attitudes and behaviour and it is also a condition for making road safety measures more effective. According to a working definition of the US Department of Transportation Safety Council (US DOT), traffic safety culture is defined as the shared values, actions, and behaviours that demonstrate a commitment to safety over competing goals and demands. However, a unified concept of safety culture still does not exist. Therefore, the project will elaborate an empirically grounded and theoretically adequate concept of traffic safety culture, based on this definition by conducting a number of case studies of different traffic safety cultures across Europe. It focuses on the safety cultures that emerge under different institutional, demographic and topographical conditions and their influence on the numbers and forms of accidents. Research focuses on the culturally mediated interaction between traffic participants and their environment in terms of the cultural patterns of risk taking and risk perception. It also looks at those cultural elements that can be changed easily in order to improve road safety of the investigated traffic systems.MSCA-RISE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) (H2020-MSCA-RISE-2014

The regional differences between countries in traffic safety : A cross-cultural study and Turkish Case

Road traffic accidents are a large problem everywhere in the world. However, regional differences in traffic safety between countries are considerable. For example, traffic safety records are much worse in Southern Europe and the Middle East than in Northern and Western Europe. Despite the large regional differences in traffic safety, factors contributing to different accident risk figures in different countries and regions have remained largely unstudied. The general aim of this study was to investigate regional differences in traffic safety between Southern European/Middle Eastern (i.e., Greece, Iran, Turkey) and Northern/Western European (i.e., Finland, Great Britain, The Netherlands) countries and to identify factors related to these differences. We conducted seven sub-studies in which I applied a traffic culture framework, including a multi-level approach, to traffic safety. We used aggregated level data (national statistics), surveys among drivers, and data on traffic accidents and fatalities in the analyses. In the first study, we investigated the influence of macro level factors (i.e., economic, societal, and cultural) on traffic safety across countries. The results showed that a high GNP per capita and conservatism correlated with a low number of traffic fatalities, whereas a high degree of uncertainty avoidance, neuroticism, and egalitarianism correlated with a high number of traffic fatalities. In the second, third, and fourth studies, we examined whether the conceptualisation of road user characteristics (i.e., driver behaviour and performance) varied across traffic cultures and how these factors determined overall safety, and the differences between countries in traffic safety. The results showed that the factorial agreement for driver behaviour (i.e., aggressive driving) and performance (i.e., safety skills) was unsatisfactory in Greece, Iran, and Turkey, where the lack of social tolerance and interpersonal aggressive violations seem to be important characteristics of driving. In addition, we found that driver behaviour (i.e., aggressive violations and errors) mediated the relationship between culture/country and accidents. Besides, drivers from "dangerous" Southern European countries and Iran scored higher on aggressive violations and errors than did drivers from "safe" Northern European countries. However, "speeding" appeared to be a "pan-cultural" problem in traffic. Similarly, aggressive driving seems largely depend on road users' interactions and drivers' interpretation (i.e., cognitive biases) of the behaviour of others in every country involved in the study. Moreover, in all countries, a risky general driving style was mostly related to being young and male. The results of the fifth and sixth studies showed that among young Turkish drivers, gender stereotypes (i.e., masculinity and femininity) greatly influence driver behaviour and performance. Feminine drivers were safety-oriented whereas masculine drivers were skill-oriented and risky drivers. Since everyday driving tasks involve not only erroneous (i.e., risky or dangerous driving) or correct performance (i.e., normal habitual driving), but also "positive" driver behaviours, we developed a reliable scale for measuring "positive" driver behaviours among Turkish drivers in the seventh study. Consequently, I revised Reason's model [Reason, J. T., 1990. Human error. Cambridge University Press: New York] of aberrant driver behaviour to represent a general driving style, including all possible intentional behaviours in traffic while evaluating the differences between countries in traffic safety. The results emphasise the importance of economic, societal and cultural factors, general driving style and skills, which are related to exposure, cognitive biases as well as age, sex, and gender, in differences between countries in traffic safety.Liikenneonnettomuuksissa kuolee vuosittain maailmassa 1,2 miljoonaa ja Euroopan unionin alueella yli 50 000 ihmistä. Alueelliset erot liikenneonnettomuuksien määrässä ovat huomattavat: riski kuolla liikenneonnettomuudessa Etelä- ja Itä-Euroopassa on huomattavasti suurempi kuin Länsi- ja Pohjois-Euroopassa. Huomattavista eroista huolimatta syitä alueellisiin eroihin liikenneturvallisuudessa on tutkittu vain vähän. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli selvittää alueellisia eroja liikenneturvallisuudessa ja -käyttäytymisessä Etelä-Euroopan/Lähi-idän maiden (Kreikka, Iran, Turkki) ja Pohjois- ja Länsi-Euroopan maiden (Alankomaat, Iso-Britannia, Suomi) välillä sekä tutkia mitkä tekijät ovat yhteydessä näihin alueellisiin eroihin. Tutkimus koostui seitsemästä osatutkimuksesta, joissa käytettiin sekä maakohtaisia tunnuslukuja että kyselyaineistoja. Tutkimuksessa havaittiin, että alueellisen kulttuurin piirteet vaikuttivat ajokäyttäytymiseen ja siten onnettomuuksiin. Maan varallisuus sekä konservatiivisuus olivat yhteydessä mataliin liikenneonnettomuuslukuihin. Eteläeurooppalaiset ja iranilaiset kuljettajat olivat pohjoiseurooppalaisia kuljettajia aggressiivisimpia ja tekivät ajaessaan enemmän suoritusvirheitä. Kulttuurierojen lisäksi havaittiin, että vaarallisen ajamisen tietyt piirteet ovat riippumattomia kulttuurista: ylinopeus sekä nuoret mieskuljettajat olivat selvä turvallisuusongelma kaikissa tutkimukseen osallistuneissa maissa. Lisäksi Turkissa tehdyssä osatutkimuksessa havaittiin, että biologisen sukupuolen lisäksi ja siitä riippumatta sukupuoliroolit (maskuliininen vs. feminiininen) olivat voimakkaasti yhteydessä ajokäyttäytymiseen ja -suoritukseen. "Feminiiniset kuljettajat" olivat maskuliinisuutta korostavia kuljettajia turvallisuussuuntautuneimpia. "Maskuliiniset kuljettajat" korostivat "feminiinisiä kuljettajia" enemmän ajamisessaan ajoneuvon teknistä hallintaa ja syyllistyivät vaaralliseen ajamiseen useammin. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat, että taloudellisilla tekijöillä ja kulttuurin ominaispiirteillä on suuri vaikutus ajoköyttäytymiseen ja alueellisiin eroihin liikenneturvallisuudessa

Genç Sürücülerde Sürücü Becerileri ve Sürücü Davranışları Arasındaki İlişki

Karayolu trafik kazaları dünya genelinde tüm yaş grupları, özellikle genç sürücüler, için önde gelen halk sağlığı problemlerinden biridir. Sürücü davranışları ve sürücü becerileri kazaya etki eden önemli insan faktörlerindendir. Özellikle sürücü davranışları ve sürücü becerileri arasındaki ilişkinin incelenmesi trafik ortamındaki insan faktörlerinin doğası ile ilgili detaylı bilgi sunmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, genç sürücülerde sürücü davranışları ve sürücü becerileri arasındaki ilişki incelenmiştir. Çalışma kapsamında sürücü becerileri özbildirim yöntemi kullanılarak sürücü davranışları hem özbildirim hem de sürüş simülatörü kullanılarak ölçülmüştür. Sonuçlar algısal-motor becerilerin, ihlaller ve sürüş simülatöründeki farklı yollardaki hız davranışıyla pozitif ilişkili olduğunu gösterirken; güvenlik becerilerinde bu ilişkinin negatif olduğunu göstermiştir. Yapılan aşamalı regresyon analizlerine göre, güvenlik becerileri ihlalleri ve hız davranışlarını negatif olarak yordamaktadır. Ayrıca, hem algısal-motor hem de güvenlik becerileri olumlu sürücü davranışlarını pozitif olarak yordamıştır. Çalışma kapsamında alanyazında ilk defa sürücü becerileri ve sürücü davranışları arasındaki ilişki hem özbildirim hem de sürüş simülatörü kullanılarak Türkiye’de genç sürücü örnekleminde çalışılmıştır. Sonuçlar genç sürücülerde sürücü davranışları ve sürücü becerileri arasındaki ilişki açısından detaylı bilgi sunmaktadır

Role of Monotonous Attention in Traffic Violations, Errors, and Accidents

Recent traffic Law in Turkey requires that drivers whose driving licenses were withheld because of their serious traffic offences be subjected to “psychotechnical assessment” tests. These tests must include measures for psychomotor and mental abilities such as monotonous attention, peripheral perception, and reasoning. Currently, we are in process of developing a computer based psychotechnical driver test system. This study investigates the validity of the monotonous attention test that is one of the measures in our system. Participants were 79 volunteer drivers from Ankara, Turkey. First, drivers completed the Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ) measuring violations and errors and demographic items regarding drivers’ history of offences and accidents. Second, participants were asked to respond the Traffic Monotonous Attention Test that is a cancellation task. Initial analysis revealed that the correlations between the scores of attention index and other major variables were not significant. Therefore, a tripartite split was performed on the participants’ attention scores. The results of ANOVAs revealed that those who had medium level of attention (incorrect responses) reported higher levels of driving errors than both high and low attention groups. The examination of the relationships between accident type and the continuous attention scores indicated that those having active accidents also had higher levels of both incorrect and omitted responses than no accident and passive accident groups. Findings of this study seem to imply that individual differences in the monotonous attention should be related with accident involvement and therefore, should be considered in devising a computer-based system including the measure of monotonous attention

Türkiye'deki yaşlı profesyonel sürücülerin araç kullanma becerilerinin değerlendirilmesi

TÜBİTAK SBB Proje31.07.200

Masculinity, femininity, and angry drivers: Masculinity and femininity as moderators between driver anger and anger expression style among young drivers

Driver anger and its expression are among the most studied topics in traffic safety literature. However, the function of gender roles, i.e., masculinity and femininity, in driving anger experience and expression has remained mainly unexplored. The present study investigates the association between driving anger and gender roles on the expression of anger among young drivers. Three hundred seventy-nine young drivers filled a questionnaire including the Driving Anger Scale, Bem Sex Roles Inventory, Driving Anger Expression Inventory, and demographic information. Moderated regression analyses showed that masculine gender role and anger provoked by other road users’ discourtesy were positively and femininity negatively related to verbal aggression while driving. Anger related to police presence, slow driving, and masculine gender role were positively related to gesture-based and vehicle-based expression of driver aggression. Hostility and feminine gender role were negatively related to the gesture-based expression of driver aggression, while anger related to witnessing illegal driving and feminine gender role were negatively related to the vehicle-based expression of aggression. The interaction effects between masculinity and hostility, masculinity and slow driving, and femininity and illegal driving were also found on the gesture-based expression of driver aggression. The effects of interaction between masculinity and slow driving and femininity and illegal driving were also found on the vehicle-based expression of driver aggression. Slow driving and femininity had a positive relationship to the adaptive expression of anger in driving. The results suggest that masculinity and femininity moderate the relationship between driving anger and the expression of driving anger among young drivers

A Behavioral Observation Study of Turkish Drivers’ and Children\u27s Safety Belt Use

Researchers focused on child restraint use in vehicles travelling along Turkish roadways. Field observations occurred at 1.5 - 2 hour intervals during daylight hours between 1130 and 1930 in January 2009. Overall, 1,423 vehicles with children 8 years old and younger were observed completely. Drivers’ belt use was 52.1%. Children\u27s use rate (over all age categories and restraint systems) was even lower at 29.4%. Unfortunately, 29.4% of these vehicles also had a child riding on another occupant\u27s lap. The findings supported researchers’ concerns that children are at risk for traffic crash injuries and fatalities in Turkey, and that occupant protection intervention should be strengthened and evaluated among this country\u27s population

Short and user-friendly: The development and validation of the Mini-DBQ

The Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ) is used to measure aberrant driver behavior by asking drivers how often they engage in various aberrant driver behaviors. Since the development of the original DBQ several modified versions have been developed. The difference between the various versions is that new items are added or existing items modified or excluded. However, despite the differences, all versions are relatively long and therefore time-consuming and tiring to answer, which might limit the usability of the instrument. The main purpose of the present study was to develop a mini DBQ version by reducing the 27-item original DBQ to the shortest possible DBQ version. A second aim was to explore the feasibility of a second-order structure within the data, which means that violations, errors and lapses factors load on a higher-order aberrant driver behavior factor. The presence of a second-order structure further indicates the validity of the DBQ and its theoretical structure. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the fit (i.e., how well the models explain the data) of the original DBQ versus the fit of the shortest possible DBQ as well as the presence of a second-order structure for the DBQ. The results indicated a nine-item Mini-DBQ In addition, a second-order structure was established in the data. These findings indicate that the Mini-DBQ is a valid and useful short measure of aberrant driver behavior

Trafik Ortamında Cinsiyet Rollerinin Sürücü Davranışları ve Sürüş Becerileriyle İlişkisi

Trafik kazaları hem Türkiye’de hem de dünya genelinde önemli halk sağlığı problemlerinden biri olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Alanyazında yer alan çalışmalar sürücülükte insan faktörlerinin iki temel boyutu olan sürücü davranışları ve sürüş becerilerinin trafikteki olumsuz çıktılarla yakından ilişkili olduğunu göstermektedir. Çalışma kapsamında cinsiyet ve cinsiyet rollerinin sürücü davranışları ve sürüş becerileriyle olan ilişkisi araştırılmaktadır. Bu amaçla, çalışmaya toplam 146’sı erkek ve 82’si kadın olmak üzere 18 – 63 yaşları arasında (Ort. = 23.03, SS = 4.56) 228 sürücü katılmıştır. Katılımcılardan demografik bilgi formu, BEM Cinsiyet Rolleri Ölçeği, Sürücü Davranışları Ölçeği ve Sürücü Becerileri Ölçeği’nden oluşan bir çevrimiçi anket bataryası tamamlamaları istenmiştir. Çalışma sonuçlarına göre kadın sürücüler erkek sürücülere göre daha fazla ihmal gösterirken; erkek sürücüler daha yüksek algısal-motor becerilere sahiptir. Yapılan aşamalı regresyon analizleri, ihlallerin erkeksilik ile pozitif, kadınsılık ile ise negatif ilişkili olduğunu göstermiştir. Ayrıca, hem kadınsılık hem de erkeksilik olumlu sürücü davranışları ve algısal-motor beceriler ile pozitif yönde ilişkili bulunmuştur. Bulgular, cinsiyet rollerinin, özellikle de kadınsılık özelliklerinin sürücü davranışları ve sürücü becerileri için olumlu bir etkisi olduğunu göstermektedir. Trafik güvenliğine yönelik yapılan eğitim ve kamu spotu gibi karşı önlem çalışmalarında kadınsılık özelliklerine daha fazla yer verilmesi ve belirtilen bu özellikleri ön plana çıkaran uygulamaların artırılmasının trafik güvenliği için olumlu etkilerde bulunması beklenmektedir

Age, gender, mileage and the DBQ: The validity of the Driver Behavior Questionnaire in different driver groups

The Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ) is one of the most widely used instruments for measuring self-reported driving behaviors. Despite the popularity of the DBQ, the applicability of the DBQ in different driver groups has remained mostly unexamined. The present study measured aberrant driving behavior using the original DBQ (Reason, J.T., Manstead, A., Stradling, S.G., Baxter, J., Campbell, K., 1990. Errors and violations on the road - a real distinction. Ergonomics, 33 (10/11), 1315-1332) to test the factorial validity and reliability of the instrument across different subgroups of Danish drivers. The survey was conducted among 11,004 Danish driving license holders of whom 2250 male and 2190 female drivers completed the questionnaire containing background variables and the DBQ. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis showed that the original three-factor solution, a four-factor solution and a two-factor solution had acceptable fit when using the whole sample. However, fit indices of these solutions varied across subgroups. The presents study illustrates that both the original DBQ and a Danish four-factor DBQ structure is relatively stable across subgroups, indicating factorial validity and reliability of the DBQ. However, as the Danish DBQ structure has an overall better fit, the present study highlights the importance of performing an explorative analysis when applying the DBQ in order to assess the problem areas within a driving population