Abstract
Objective: Research has shown that perceived risk is a vital variable in the understanding of road traffic safety. Having experience in a particular traffic environment can be expected to affect perceived risk. More specifically, drivers may readily recognize traffic hazards when driving in their own world region, resulting in high perceived risk (the expertise hypothesis). Oppositely, drivers may be desensitized to traffic hazards that are common in their own world region, resulting in low perceived risk (the desensitization hypothesis). This study investigated whether participants experienced higher or lower perceived risk for traffic situations from their region compared to traffic situations from other regions. Methods: In a crowdsourcing experiment, participants viewed dashcam videos from four regions: India, Venezuela, United States, and Western Europe. Participants had to press a key when they felt the situation was risky. Results: Data were obtained from 800 participants, with 52 participants from India, 75 from Venezuela, 79 from the United States, 32 from Western Europe, and 562 from other countries. The results provide support for the desensitization hypothesis. For example, participants from India perceived low risk for hazards (e.g., a stationary car on the highway) that were perceived as risky by participants from other regions. At the same time, support for the expertise hypothesis was obtained, as participants in some cases detected hazards that were specific to their own region (e.g., participants from Venezuela detected inconspicuous roadworks in a Venezuelan city better than did participants from other regions). Conclusion: We found support for the desensitization hypothesis and the expertise hypothesis. These findings have implications for cross-cultural hazard perception research.
Highlights
Objective risk and perceived riskEach year, more than 1.35 million fatal accidents occur on the roads worldwide (World Health Organization 2018)
Drivers may be desensitized to traffic hazards that are common in their own world region, resulting in low perceived risk
This study investigated whether participants experienced higher or lower perceived risk for traffic situations from their region compared to traffic situations from other regions
Summary
Objective risk and perceived riskEach year, more than 1.35 million fatal accidents occur on the roads worldwide (World Health Organization 2018). An analysis of 65 countries showed that drivers from lowincome countries have the highest probability of dying in traffic, with a correlation of -0.78 between road traffic death rate and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (Bazilinskyy et al 2019). National differences in crash statistics may be attributable to national differences in driving behavior. A questionnaire study by Bazilinskyy et al (2019), for example, found that respondents from countries with a lower GDP per capita report a higher number of violations such as tailgating, using a phone behind the wheel, or racing away from traffic lights. The underlying causes of national differences in driving behavior are unknown, . We attempt to examine the psychological mechanisms that may bring about cross-national differences in driving behavior and accident rates; such knowledge could prove useful in the development of crash countermeasures
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