Attitudes and road accident risk

Change of road user attitudes is often advocated as a necessary condition for improvement of road safety. The relation between road user attitudes and accident risk is, however, not well known in road safety research. The objective of this study was to find out whether attitudes are of importance to road safety, i.e. the hypothesis is that drivers having attitudes considered correct according to the traffic code, have lower accident risk than other drivers. The attitudes of a representative sample of Norwegian driver's license holders as well as their accident involvement and driving distance were surveyed by mail questionnaires in two phases. When no other factor is taken into account, accident risk is found to be affected by driver attitudes. When, on the other hand, the age of drivers is taken into account, the relation between attitudes and accident risk disappears. It is concluded that age and annual mileage are more important to accident risk than are attitudes, and more knowledge of the relationship between attitudes and road accident risk is needed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.