Measuring Minnesota's Traffic Safety Culture PDF Download

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Category : Automobile drivers
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
The goal of this study was to develop a survey methodology for Minnesota to measure state-level traffic-safety culture with three objectives: 1. Index traffic-safety culture as a performance indicator. 2. Identify culture-based strategies to achieve safety targets. 3.Assess receptivity of social environment for planned strategies. The survey was designed around a definition of safety culture as "the socially constructed abstract system of meaning, norms, beliefs, and values." (Myers et al., 2014; Reiman & Rollenhagen, 2014) Given that the majority of cases in which driver behavior is associated with fatal crashes can be presumed to be deliberate, these cognitions determine the intention to behave in either a safe or risky manner. This definition emphasizes that cognitions - shared by a group of people - influence the behavioral choices of the individual group members. The survey was designed to be implemented using a paper instrument mailed to households in Minnesota. The sample was based on a random sample of 10,000 Minnesota household addresses selected in November 2013 to cover all Area Transportation Partnership (ATP) boundary areas. The results indicate that many aspects of Minnesota are predictive of the level of engagement in both risky and protective behaviors. Often, the misperception that risk-taking is common and accepted increased the probability that individuals would decide to engage in risky behaviors themselves. The results are used to recommend strategies to increase concern about traffic safety overall and to reduce the incidence of risky behaviors in favor of safer choices.