TY - JOUR

T1 - Road traffic accidents and self-reported Portuguese car driver's attitudes, behaviours and opinions

T2 - are they related?

AU - Bon de Sousa, Teresa

AU - Santos, Carolina

AU - Caixeiro Mateus, Maria Do Ceu

AU - Areal, Alain

AU - Trigoso, José

AU - Nunes, Carla

N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Traffic Injury Prevention on 18/02/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15389588.2016.1150591

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - Objective: This study aims to characterize Portuguese car drivers in terms of demographiccharacteristics, driving experience, and attitudes, opinions and behaviours concerning road trafficsafety. Furthermore, associations between these characteristics and self-reported involvement ina road traffic accident as a driver in the last three years were analysed. A final goal was todevelop a final predictive model of the risk of suffering a road traffic accident.Methods: A cross-sectional analytic study was developed, based on a convenience sample of612 car drivers. A questionnaire was applied by trained interviewers, embracing various topicsrelated to road safety such as driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, phone use whiledriving, speeding, use of advanced driver assistance systems and the transport infrastructure andenvironment (European Project SARTRE 4, Portuguese version). From the 52 initial questions,19 variables were selected through principal component analysis. After that, and in addition tothe usual descriptive measures, logistic binary regression models were used in order to describeassociations and to develop a predictive model of being involved in a road traffic accident.Results: From the 612 car drivers, 37.3% (228) reported being involved in a road traffic accidentwith damage or injury in the past three years. In this group, the majority were male, older than65, with no children, not employed and living in an urban area. In the multivariate model, severalfactors were identified: being widowed (vs. single) (OR = 3.478, CI95%: 1.159‒10.434); livingin a suburban area (vs. a rural area) (OR = 5.023, CI95%: 2.260‒11.166); having been checkedfor alcohol once in the last three years (vs. not checked) (OR = 3.124, CI95%: 2.040‒4,783); andseldom drinking an energetic beverage such as coffee when tired (vs. always do it) (OR = 6.822,CI95%: 2.619‒17.769) all suffered a higher risk of being involved in a car accident.Conclusions: The results obtained with regard to behavioural factors meet the majority of therisk factors associated with car accidents referred to in literature. This study highlights therelation of relatively minor accidents (the majority with no injuries) with urban (or semi-urban)context and involving older drivers. These accidents are not usually the focus of road safetyliterature (mainly death and serious health loss) but, additionally to the economic costs involved,they can have a huge impact on road safety (e.g., pedestrian). Specifically the followinginterventions can be proposed: more detailed clinical examinations to identify real competenciesto drive especially in older drivers (active aging can constitute a new challenge in road safety andnew paradigms can arise); education campaigns in how to cope with fatigue. Future studies inlarge samples and not based on self-reported behaviours should be developed.

AB - Objective: This study aims to characterize Portuguese car drivers in terms of demographiccharacteristics, driving experience, and attitudes, opinions and behaviours concerning road trafficsafety. Furthermore, associations between these characteristics and self-reported involvement ina road traffic accident as a driver in the last three years were analysed. A final goal was todevelop a final predictive model of the risk of suffering a road traffic accident.Methods: A cross-sectional analytic study was developed, based on a convenience sample of612 car drivers. A questionnaire was applied by trained interviewers, embracing various topicsrelated to road safety such as driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, phone use whiledriving, speeding, use of advanced driver assistance systems and the transport infrastructure andenvironment (European Project SARTRE 4, Portuguese version). From the 52 initial questions,19 variables were selected through principal component analysis. After that, and in addition tothe usual descriptive measures, logistic binary regression models were used in order to describeassociations and to develop a predictive model of being involved in a road traffic accident.Results: From the 612 car drivers, 37.3% (228) reported being involved in a road traffic accidentwith damage or injury in the past three years. In this group, the majority were male, older than65, with no children, not employed and living in an urban area. In the multivariate model, severalfactors were identified: being widowed (vs. single) (OR = 3.478, CI95%: 1.159‒10.434); livingin a suburban area (vs. a rural area) (OR = 5.023, CI95%: 2.260‒11.166); having been checkedfor alcohol once in the last three years (vs. not checked) (OR = 3.124, CI95%: 2.040‒4,783); andseldom drinking an energetic beverage such as coffee when tired (vs. always do it) (OR = 6.822,CI95%: 2.619‒17.769) all suffered a higher risk of being involved in a car accident.Conclusions: The results obtained with regard to behavioural factors meet the majority of therisk factors associated with car accidents referred to in literature. This study highlights therelation of relatively minor accidents (the majority with no injuries) with urban (or semi-urban)context and involving older drivers. These accidents are not usually the focus of road safetyliterature (mainly death and serious health loss) but, additionally to the economic costs involved,they can have a huge impact on road safety (e.g., pedestrian). Specifically the followinginterventions can be proposed: more detailed clinical examinations to identify real competenciesto drive especially in older drivers (active aging can constitute a new challenge in road safety andnew paradigms can arise); education campaigns in how to cope with fatigue. Future studies inlarge samples and not based on self-reported behaviours should be developed.

KW - road traffic accident

KW - behaviour, attitudes and opinions

KW - car drivers

U2 - 10.1080/15389588.2016.1150591

DO - 10.1080/15389588.2016.1150591

M3 - Journal article

VL - 17

SP - 705

EP - 711

JO - Traffic Injury Prevention

JF - Traffic Injury Prevention

SN - 1538-9588

IS - 7

ER -