Knowledge of the Concepts of "Black Spot", "Grey Spot" and "High Accident Concentration Sections" Among Drivers

Abstract

One of the major problems related to road injuries and deaths are the presence of Black Spots. This problem has received a growing amount of attention from road managers thorough last decades, taking into account its importance for the safety of road users. In fact, knowledge about these strategic areas among drivers seems to be quite important, since this conceptualization may affect their behavior and assumed risks on the road. The main objective of this research was to assess the knowledge that drivers have on the concept of black spot and other closely related terms: “grey spot” and “high accident concentration sections”. For this study, it was used a random sample of 200 drivers from the province of Valencia (Spain), between 18 and 64 years of age. Through data analysis it was found that, while most of drivers does know the concept of black spot properly (87.5% of them), this trend is not stable when knowledge of related concepts is assessed. In regard to the further technical terms addressed by this study (grey spot and high accident concentration sections), there is an elevated relative percentage of drivers who have very biased misconceptions about these concepts. With respect to the grey spots, in which knowledge barely reached 13% of the driving population, unfamiliarity rate increased significantly. As conclusion, in regard to the concept of “high accident concentration sections”, it was found that it is a really misunderstood, relativized and biased concept among population of drivers and, furthermore, in general, unknown to most of road users. Finally, it has been suggested that the public administrations should work to increase this knowledge, as it would allow drivers to adopt more cautious behavior when confronted with this potentially dangerous sections throughout their routes.