The association between national culture, road safety performance and support for policy measures

Abstract

There are considerable differences between countries when it comes to road safety performance, as indicated by the number of road fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants. These discrepancies are strongly associated with differences in wealth and prosperity, as expected, but are also related to national culture. The overall objective of this exploratory study is to identify relationships between national culture, road safety performance and public support for policy measures. Using the revised version of Hofstede's cultural dimensions, we show the strong correlation between national culture and road safety performance, which exists even after controlling for the national level of wealth as measured by the gross national income. Furthermore, by combining the national cultural dimensions with data on 29 countries from the second stage of ESRA, the E -Survey of Road users' Attitudes, this study demonstrates that culture also affects the level of public support for policy measures related to road safety. Specifically, for many measures, the degree of individualism accounts for a considerable part of the statistical variation in the public support for policy measures across countries—except for those measures for which the support is very high in most countries. Possible explanations are given for the seemingly paradoxical finding that countries which witness high resistance to road safety policy measures have nevertheless managed to achieve better road safety performance.

A Test of the Revised Minkov-Hofstede Model of Culture: Mirror Images of Subjective and Objective Culture across Nations and the 50 US States

“…Similar conclusions were reached by Solmazer et al (2016) who explicitly indicate that IDV-COLL or Schwartz’s related dimensions of culture affect road death tolls through differences in law enforcement: COLL societies have laxer enforcement. The strong negative association between IDV-COLL and road death tolls has been confirmed by a number of other studies using diverse databases, such as Gaygisiz (2009), Van den Berghe et al (2020), etc.…”

Drivers’ usage of driving automation systems in different contexts: A survey in China, Germany, Spain and USA

“…[24–26]) cannot be confirmed as explanations for differences in the national sample's reported DAS usage, the importance of differences in driving culture and associated attitudes towards traffic safety, risk perception, and traffic safety measures (cf. [36]) cannot be disregarded. The results imply instead that further studies are needed to investigate the impact of for example driving culture on drivers’ use and non‐use of DAS.…”

Improving sustainable mobility in university campuses: the case study of Sapienza University

“… Information and motivations that lead to the use of the prevailing vehicle: car, motorcycle and moped, public transport, bicycle (costs, property, willingness to use more sustainable forms of mobility).  Information on travel-related perception and attitudes (Van den Berghe et al, 2020).  Other information not addressed in this study.…”