Road Safety Campaigns Research Articles

El discurso emocional en la publicidad audiovisual de la DGT

As is well known, one of the objectives of the Spanish Traffic Department (DGT) is to reduce accidents in both urban roads and on highways. Fortunately, in the last decade, there has been a decline in the number of accidents and death rates thereof. However, the numbers remain high, mainly because there are a percentage of cases that could be prevented with good driving practices. One tool available to the DGT are road safety campaigns both through mediaradio, billboards, television, Internet, and their YouTube channel and their own website. In this paper we analyze the different types of emotions that are represented in different spots that the DGT has promoted on television and note which ones appear more frequently.

The Impact of Threat Appeals on Fear Arousal and Driver Behavior: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Research 1990–2011

The existing empirical research exploring the impact of threat appeals on driver behavior has reported inconsistent findings. In an effort to provide an up-to-date synthesis of the experimental findings, meta-analytic techniques were employed to examine the impact of threat-based messages on fear arousal and on lab-based indices of driving behavior. Experimental studies (k = 13, N = 3044), conducted between 1990 and 2011, were included in the analyses. The aims of the current analysis were (a) to examine whether or not the experimental manipulations had a significant impact on evoked fear, (b) to examine the impact of threat appeals on three distinct indices of driving, and (c) to identify moderators and mediators of the relationship between fear and driving outcomes. Large effects emerged for the level of fear evoked, with experimental groups reporting increased fear arousal in comparison to control groups (r = .64, n = 619, p<.01). The effect of threat appeals on driving outcomes, however, was not significant (r = .03, p = .17). This analysis of the experimental literature indicates that threat appeals can lead to increased fear arousal, but do not appear to have the desired impact on driving behavior. We discuss these findings in the context of threat-based road safety campaigns and future directions for experimental research in this area.

Methodology for fitting and updating predictive accident models with trend

Reliable predictive accident models (PAMs) (also referred to as Safety Performance Functions (SPFs)) have a variety of important uses in traffic safety research and practice. They are used to help identify sites in need of remedial treatment, in the design of transport schemes to assess safety implications, and to estimate the effectiveness of remedial treatments. The PAMs currently in use in the UK are now quite old; the data used in their development was gathered up to 30 years ago. Many changes have occurred over that period in road and vehicle design, in road safety campaigns and legislation, and the national accident rate has fallen substantially. It seems unlikely that these ageing models can be relied upon to provide accurate and reliable predictions of accident frequencies on the roads today. This paper addresses a number of methodological issues that arise in seeking practical and efficient ways to update PAMs, whether by re-calibration or by re-fitting. Models for accidents on rural single carriageway roads have been chosen to illustrate these issues, including the choice of distributional assumption for overdispersion, the choice of goodness of fit measures, questions of independence between observations in different years, and between links on the same scheme, the estimation of trends in the models, the uncertainty of predictions, as well as considerations about the most efficient and convenient ways to fit the required models.

Nonfatal Road Traffic Injuries: Can Road Safety Campaigns Prevent Hazardous Behavior? An Italian Experience

Objectives: Road traffic injuries are a widespread problem and are very difficult to prevent. The purpose of this study was to verify whether intensive versus basic road safety education programs are associated with different incidence and severity of nonfatal road injuries. Method: The study had an ecological design and involved Local Health Authority One (LHA1) in Salerno, Italy, which includes 20 municipalities. Data on nonfatal road injuries occurring in the periods June to August 2003 and June to August 2008 were obtained from trained operators through the information system of the emergency department. All 20 municipalities received a basic community road safety education program (publicity campaign using bill-posting, brochures, mass media communication with press conferences, articles in local papers, radio and television interviews, and a dedicated LHA1 web site), and 12 municipalities also received an intensive education campaign (in secondary schools, community conferences, and activities organized by police and firefighters). The incidence and severity of nonfatal road traffic injuries were compared between June to August 2003 (before the campaign) and June to August 2008. Results: The total number of injuries in all 20 municipalities in 2003 and 2008 was 907 and 755, respectively. The incidence of injuries decreased in the study period both in the 8 municipalities where only the basic campaign was run (difference in incidence = −0.4; P = .053) and in the 12 municipalities where the intensive campaign was implemented (difference in incidence = −0.5; P < .001); focusing on severity, the incidence of severe injuries decreased or remained the same in the study period in the 2 studied group. Discussion: The results are coherent with other European studies and show that an overall downward trend exists but is presumably not a direct consequence of road safety education. This does not mean that such campaigns are useless (they are important to raise awareness) but that they should be supplemented with complementary activities in order to be really effective.

Road safety communication campaigns: Research designs and behavioral modeling

Communication campaigns are used as a rather efficient strategy to approach the wide audience in terms of promoting road safety and improving driving behavior. Incorporation of the evaluation in the campaign design is considered of high importance, since it provides information about the effectiveness of the campaign. Literature review on road safety campaigns, conducted in the last decade, highlights the importance, as well as the limited application of a well structured theoretical background when designing and implementing a road safety campaign, that could enable predicting possible behavioral changes of the road users owing to the campaign, and facilitate the assessment of its effectiveness. The scope of this study is to examine the predictability of alternative research designs as regards driving behavior, when evaluating the effectiveness of road safety campaigns; moreover, to assess the impact of the various parameters and predict behavioral changes. The conclusions drawn rely on the results of the assessment of the impacts of two local campaigns, one on drink and drive and the other on seat belt usage, both implemented on a university campus, with its 1587 students (drivers and passengers) forming the target group. Both campaigns were designed taking as a premise for design and assessment the Theory of Planned Behavior, and an attempt was made of developing alternative models for correlating behavior and intentions with behavioral beliefs, control beliefs, normative beliefs, and descriptive norms. Increase of the predictability of the models was noticed as more constructs were being added; especially, when past behavior was added in the models predicting intention, and intention in the models predicting behavior. This demonstrates the high correlation between these two constructs. The theoretical and applied implications of the models are discussed.

The road most travelled: the geographic distribution of road traffic injuries in England.

BackgroundBoth road safety campaigns and epidemiological research into social differences in road traffic injury risk often assume that road traffic injuries occur close to home. While previous work has examined distance from home to site of collision for child pedestrians in local areas, less is known about the geographic distribution of road traffic injuries from other modes. This study explores the distribution of the distance between home residence and collision site (crash distance) by mode of transport, geographic area, and social characteristics in England.MethodsUsing 10 years of road casualty data collected by the police, we examined the distribution of crash distance by age, sex, injury severity, area deprivation, urban/rural status, year, day of week, and, in London only, ethnic group.Results54% of pedestrians, 39% of cyclists, 17% of powered two-wheeler riders and 16% of car occupants were injured within 1 km of home. 82% of pedestrians, 83% of cyclists, 54% of powered two-wheeler and 53% of car occupants were injured within 5 km of home. We found some social and geographic differences in crash distance: for all transport modes injuries tended to occur closer to home in more deprived or urban areas; younger and older pedestrians and cyclists were also injured closer to home. Crash distance appears to have increased over time for pedestrian, cyclist and car occupant injuries, but has decreased over time for powered two-wheeler injuries.ConclusionsInjuries from all travel modes tend to occur quite close to home, supporting assumptions made in epidemiological and road safety education literature. However, the trend for increasing crash distance and the social differences identified may have methodological implications for future epidemiological studies on social differences in injury risk.

Does the Theme of a Road Safety Communication Campaign Affect its Success?

Road safety communication campaigns are considered as an efficient strategy to approach the wide audience and influence road users towards a safe behavior, with main aim to lead to the reduction of the number and the severity of road accidents. When designing the implementation of a campaign, it is important to plan at the same time its evaluation, so that to enable the assessment of its effectiveness. For the achievement of high reliability and the development of “clear” conclusions, the campaign evaluation should be carefully organized, following a feasible scientific design. Towards this direction, three road safety campaigns, two local campaigns addressing drink driving and seat belt usage, and one national campaign addressing driving fatigue, were implemented and evaluated. Presenting the design components of the three campaigns and the evaluation results, this paper aims at revealing the similarities and differences of the effectiveness of road safety communication campaigns on driving behavior.

Using Decision Trees to Extract Decision Rules from Police Reports on Road Accidents

The World Health Organization (WHO) considers that traffic accidents are major public health problem worldwide, for this reason safety managers try to identify the main factors affecting the severity as consequence of road accidents. In order to identify these factors, in this paper, Data Mining (DM) techniques such as Decision Trees (DTs), have been used. A dataset of traffic accidents on rural roads in the province of Granada (Spain) have been analyzed.DTs allow certain decision rules to be extracted. These rules could be used in future road safety campaigns and would enable managers to implement certain priority actions.

Media analysis of road safety communication in China

BackgroundRoad crashes are a leading cause of death and injuries in China. Rapid motorisation and mounting road crash casualties attract considerable media interest. However, the pattern of how the Chinese...

Extracting decision rules from police accident reports through decision trees

Given the current number of road accidents, the aim of many road safety analysts is to identify the main factors that contribute to crash severity. To pinpoint those factors, this paper shows an application that applies some of the methods most commonly used to build decision trees (DTs), which have not been applied to the road safety field before. An analysis of accidents on rural highways in the province of Granada (Spain) between 2003 and 2009 (both inclusive) showed that the methods used to build DTs serve our purpose and may even be complementary. Applying these methods has enabled potentially useful decision rules to be extracted that could be used by road safety analysts. For instance, some of the rules may indicate that women, contrary to men, increase their risk of severity under bad lighting conditions. The rules could be used in road safety campaigns to mitigate specific problems. This would enable managers to implement priority actions based on a classification of accidents by types (depending on their severity). However, the primary importance of this proposal is that other databases not used here (i.e. other infrastructure, roads and countries) could be used to identify unconventional problems in a manner easy for road safety managers to understand, as decision rules.

Campanhas portuguesas de prevenção rodoviária: uma análise da sua influência

Focused in road safety campaigns, this study aims to analyze the attitude of the Portuguese drivers towards these campaigns, particularly in relation to different creative dimensions. In addition, based on this attitude, this research aims to propose a segmentation of Portuguese drivers according to their attitude towards these campaigns. In terms of methodology we developed a conceptual model involving creative dimensions of these campaigns. Subsequently a questionnaire was administered to a sample of 305 Portuguese drivers, where it was intended to assess the influence of each dimension to the driving behavior. Based on the results we come up with some contributions to the validation of the model and also to identify three distinct groups of drivers in terms of att itude to communication campaigns: “Indifferent”, “Influenced”, and “Interested.”As main results, we found that these road safety campaigns are not consensual, and that there are drivers who reject this type of campaigns and others who identify themselves as being strongly influenced by them. It was also found that the structure of messages based in dramatic tones and fear appeals could lead to an increase in its persuasive potential.

Road accidents caused by sleepy drivers: Update of a Norwegian survey

The current study tests, updates and expands a model of factors associated with sleepy driving, originally based on a 1997 survey of accident-involved Norwegian drivers (Sagberg, F., 1999. Road accidents caused by drivers falling asleep. Accident Analysis & Prevention 31, 639–649). The aim is to establish a robust model to inform measures to tackle sleepy driving. The original questions on (i) tiredness-related accidents and (ii) incidents of sleep behind the wheel in the last 12 months were again posed in 2003 and 2008, in independent surveys of Norwegian drivers involved in accidents reported to a large insurance company. According to those drivers at-fault for the accident, tiredness or sleepiness behind the wheel contributed to between 1.9 and 3.9 per cent of all types of accident reported to the insurance company across these years. Accident-involved drivers not at fault for the accident reported a reduction in the incidence of sleep behind the wheel for the preceding year, decreasing from 8.3 per cent in 1997 to 2.9 per cent in 2008. The reasons for this are not clear. According to logistic regression analysis of survey responses, the following factors were robustly associated with road accidents involving sleepy driving: driving off the road; good road conditions; longer distance driven since the start of the trip; and fewer years with a driving licence. The following factors are consistently associated with reports of sleep behind the wheel, whether or not it leads to an accident: being male; driving further per year; being younger; and having sleep-related health problems. Taken together these findings suggest that young, inexperienced male drivers who drive long distances may be a suitable target for road safety campaigns aimed at tackling sleepy driving.

“My Son Is Reliable”

The high crash rates among teenage drivers are of great concern across nations. Parents’ involvement is known to help increase their young drivers’ driving safety. In particular, parents can place restrictions on their son’s/daughter’s driving (e.g., restrict night time driving), which can enable the young driver to gain driving experience in safer conditions. Yet little is known about what do parents think about parental responsibility regarding young drivers’ driving. This study aimed to address this question. It draws on both quantitative and qualitative data obtained through a phone survey of 906 Israeli parents of young drivers that included both open- and closed-ended items and 20 semistructured interviews with parents. The main findings were that parents tended to be optimistic about their own child’s driving compared with other young drivers and were relatively unconcerned about speeding. Whereas most parents thought restrictions regarding driving at night or talking on the phone should be placed on young drivers, most believed many parents do not enforce them. Most also believed many parents feel they are unable to influence young drivers’ driving. The exception, however, was they believed most parents restrict young drivers driving when they are tired. Two contrasting conceptions of parental responsibility were identified and presented as a model. Potential implications for road safety campaigns from a social norms perspective are discussed.

Epidemiology and pattern of paediatric and adolescent trauma deaths in a level 1 trauma centre in Benin city, Nigeria

BackgroundTrauma is a common cause of death amongst children/adolescents, and data on its epidemiology and pattern are crucial for policy formulation. The aim of this study was to determine the epidemiology and pattern of paediatric/adolescent trauma death in a Nigerian referral trauma centre. MethodsThe clinical and autopsy data of all paediatric/adolescent trauma death at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital between 1999 and 2010 were analysed in a retrospective study. ResultsOf 905 trauma-related deaths, 78 (9%) involved children/adolescents who comprised 49 males and 29 females, with a male/female ratio 1.7:1 and a mean age of 9.2±5years (range <1–18years). The Injury-Arrival time varied from 1h to 4days (mean 18h). Thirteen (17%) cases were dead on arrival (DOA), and majority of the deaths occurred within the first week on admission. Road traffic accident (RTA), accounting for 61 (78%) cases, was the leading cause of trauma death. Other causes included burns, eight (10%); gunshot injury, five (6%); and stab and sport injuries, two (3%) cases each. Head injury which occurred in 44 (56%) cases was the commonest cause of death, followed by haemorrhagic shock in 25 (32%), hypovolaemic shock in five (6%), septic shock in three (4%) and spinal cord injury in one (1%). ConclusionHead injury following RTA was the major cause of paediatric/adolescent trauma deaths. Increased road safety campaign, appropriate injury control policies, legislations, enforcement, development of high-quality trauma system, and emergency medical services are advocated.

Effects of Impulsive Sensation Seeking, Aggression and Risk-Taking Behaviors on the Vulnerability of Motorcyclists

While extensive research efforts have been devoted to improve the motorcycle safety, the relationship between the rider behavior and the crash risk is still not well understood.The objective of this study is to evaluate how behavioral factors influence crash risk and to identify the most vulnerable group of motorcyclists. To explore the rider behavior, a questionnaire containing 61-items of impulsive sensation seeking, aggression, and risk-taking behavior was developed. By clustering the crash risk using the medoid portioning algorithm, the log-linear model relating the rider behavior to crash risk has been developed. Results show that crash-involved motorcyclists score higher in all three behavioral traits. Aggressive and high risk-taking motorcyclists are more likely to fall under the high vulnerable group while impulsive sensation seeking is not found to be significant. Defining personality types from aggression and risk-taking behavior, “Extrovert” and “Follower” personality type of motorcyclists are more prone to crashes. The findings of this study will be useful for road safety campaign planners to be more focused in the target group as well as those who employ motorcyclists for their delivery business

Progress in reducing road-related deaths and injuries in irish children

AimsStudy road-related injuries and fatalities in under 15 year olds in two periods (1996–2000 and 2004–2008) to assess whether progress has been made via campaigns to reduce these numbers in...

Meta-analysis of the effect of road safety campaigns on accidents

A meta-analysis of 67 studies evaluating the effect of road safety campaigns on accidents is reported. A total of 119 results were extracted from the studies, which were reported in 12 different countries between 1975 and 2007. After allowing for publication bias and heterogeneity of effects, the weighted average effect of road safety campaigns is a 9% reduction in accidents (with 95% confidence that the weighted average is between −12 and −6%). To account for the variability of effects measured across studies, data were collected to characterise aspects of the campaign and evaluation design associated with each effect, and analysed to identify a model of seven campaign factors for testing by meta-regression. The model was tested using both fixed and random effect meta-regression, and dependency among effects was accounted for by aggregation. These analyses suggest positive associations between accident reduction and the use of personal communication or roadside media as part of a campaign delivery strategy. Campaigns with a drink-driving theme were also associated with greater accident reductions, while some of the analyses suggested that accompanying enforcement and short campaign duration (less than one month) are beneficial. Overall the results are consistent with the idea that campaigns can be more effective in the short term if the message is delivered with personal communication in a way that is proximal in space and time to the behaviour targeted by the campaign.

A hospital-initiated multisectoral road safety campaign with speed-adapted coconut drop test in Northern Laos

We investigate the efficacy of a multisectoral road safety campaign initiated at Luang Namtha Provincial Hospital (LNPH), North-Laos. Road safety days (RSD) with helmet promotion were organised prior to the Lao and International New Year 2007. Motorbike helmet protectiveness was demonstrated by dropping peeled versus unpeeled coconuts from 6-m high sticks simulating city speed-limit (40 km/h). The primary outcome was the number of road traffic injuries (RTI) needing admission (severe RTI) before and after the first RSD. Secondary outcomes were helmet usage, total RTI, hospital staff's behavioural changes and law enforcement. Neighbouring Bokeo Provincial Hospital (BPH) had no intervention. Severe RTI dropped by 34.7% within 12 months (from 449 to 293, p ≤ 0.0001, BPH +123% [from 88 to 196]). Total RTI increased by 10.8% (from 772 to 855, p = 0.0396, BPH +260.8% [from 186 to 671]). Police started the law enforcement right after the RSD. Helmet use increased from 11.2 to 42.5% (p < 0.0001). Coconut test was the main reason for safer behaviour among RSD participants seven months later (16/32). The intervention effectively prevented severe RTI. The speed-adapted coconut drop test was a simple, convincing and efficient educational tool, easily adaptable to other settings.

Improving the effectiveness of road safety campaigns: Current and new practices

The evaluation of campaigns aimed at improving road safety is still the exception rather than the rule. Because of this, ineffective campaigns and campaign techniques are allowed to continue to be utilised without question, while new methods of behaviour modification are often ignored. Therefore, the necessity and advantages of formally evaluating road safety campaign efforts are discussed. This article also describes the pros and cons of some of the more common campaign strategies and introduces a number of new methods that show a great deal of promise for the purpose of road safety campaigns. In order to infuse the field of road safety campaigning with such new insights into road user behaviour and behavioural modification, one should look beyond the confines of road safety campaign standards and learn from the knowledge gained in other disciplines such as economics and social psychology. These new insights are discussed in terms of their implications for the future of road safety campaigns.

Children safety in cars: polish measures contributing to increase the use of child restrain system

The article presents the realisation of European Road Safety Campaign in Poland. The project consisted in carrying out activities aiming at increasing the number of children properly transported in cars...