Accident involvement of young people in rural areas and their traffic safety related attitudes

This paper describes the results of an in-depth study among pupils in secondary school age to investigate their attitudes related to traffic safety. The study was initiated in the context of a policy to further guide the development of traffic safety education. Youngsters' attitudes were measured in seven domains, such as risk perception and risk taking, alcohol and drugs, propensity to group conformity and traffic safety related norms and values such as indifference in behaving unsafely. A further feature of the study was the measurement of pupils' actual accident involvement. This provided empirical evidence for the relevance of attitudes to accident involvement. This knowledge provides guidance to the search for the most effective orientation of traffic safety education. The Dutch Ministries of Education and Transport initiated the study. The study is based on a sample of 1.680 pupils in the Netherlands. The bike is their dominant way of transport. Forty percent of them face four or more risky traffic situations to/from school every day. Young people are a high-risk group in terms of accidents. It could be shown that specific attitudes correlate strongly to actual accident involvement. No evidence was found for any correlation between pupils' knowledge of traffic rules and accident involvement. Within the set of attitudes, the most predictive ones are the propensity to follow group norms and the propensity to behave decently in traffic. Other important attitude domains are the attitude towards cycling when having drunk and the degree in which youngsters tend to accept risk in traffic. Attitudes worsen as children get older. The study confirms that measures in terms of infrastructure are insufficient to prevent accidents. Education is a necessary supplement. For the covering abstract see ITRD E136183.