International analysis on social and personal determinants of traffic violations and accidents employing logistic regression with elastic net regularization

Abstract

While the number of road fatalities is declining in developed countries, it is still increasing globally, especially in middle-and low-income countries. In addition to the driver's individual awareness and attitude toward traffic safety, various factors such as the development of road infrastructure and the legal system may have a significant influence on the occurrence of traffic accidents. Thus, it is essential to consider these factors to enhance traffic safety and achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Targets of 3.6.In this study, we developed an Elastic Net Regression model to evaluate the factors that influence an individual's traffic violations and accidents based on an international questionnaire on traffic safety attitude, country fact survey data on traffic regulations, and other statistical databases. As a result, it was revealed that: i) In addition to country-level factors, the individual's attributes and attitudes toward traffic safety have an influence on the experience of traffic violations and accidents. and ii) While the same variables regarding individual attributes and attitudes are selected for both traffic violations and accidents, the selected variables relating to country factors differ between violations and accidents.