Attitude of Drivers Towards Road Traffic Safety and its Association with Occurred Road Traffic Crashes Among Jimma Zone Public Transport Drivers, Southwest Ethiopia

Keywords

Road Traffic Safety; Attitude; Drivers; Association; Road Traffic Crash.

Introduction

Road traffic crash (RTC) can be defined as an crash that occurs on a way or street open to public traffic, resulting in one or more persons being killed or injured, and involving at least one moving vehicle. It involves all collisions sustained between vehicles, between vehicles and pedestrians, between vehicles and animals, or between vehicles and geographical or architectural obstacles [1].

Globally, RTCs are issue of major public health importance and are projected to be the third leading cause of Disability-Adjusted Life-Years (DALYs) by 2020. In 2010 about 1.24 million people lost their lives in RTCs, making it the eighth leading cause of death globally. Additionally, 20–50 million people were non-fatally injured on the road[2]. The burden of road traffic injuries in Africa is high and there is an underestimation of road traffic fatalities despite 34% increase road deaths in Africa in the past 35 years [3].

Personality traits, attitudes toward traffic safety (RTS), risky driving (errors, lapses, and traffic violations), and self-reported crash involvement and number of issued traffic tickets in the last 12 months showed that risky driving was positively related to selfreported crash involvement and higher number of issued traffic tickets [4]. Increase in attitude and behavior was followed by a decrease in RTC having a crucial effect. Study conducted among Iranian drivers [5]. Personality traits were also associated to aberrant driving behaviors both directly and indirectly where a particular altruism, excitement seeking, and normlessness directly affects drivers’ attitudes toward traffic safety which, in turn, were negatively associated with RTCs [6, 7].

In Ethiopia, there is limited of studies on attitude of drivers towards road traffic safety and its association with RTC. Thus, the present study was aimed to assess attitude of drivers towards road traffic safety and its association with occurred RTC among Jimma zone public transport drivers.

Materials and Methods

The study was conducted in Jimma zone, in the Oromia region, located 352 km away to southwest of the capital city of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. Jimma zone has 18 woredas/clusteres for administration. Jimma zone transport authority registered a total of 7219 vehicles working in public transpoRTCtion from whch about 1352 are three wheel vehicles. About 4446 vehicles are traveling to woreda from capital town of the zone, Jimma while about and 248 vehicles are serving within the town. The study was conducted from March 25, 2019 to April 25, 2019. A Cross sectional study design was used among selected 398 licensed public transport drivers (including drivers of three wheel vehicles) working at different stations, while waiting their turn. Study participants were informed about the nature of the study, and participation was voluntary and anonymous.

Driver Attitude Questionnaire (DAQ) that comprises 16 items (4 statements with positive items and 12 statements with negative items) was applied to assess drivers’ attitudes and behaviors towards road traffic safety with four Point Likert-scales (1-4, refers to totally disagree, disagree, agree and totally agree respectively for positive statements and reverse for negative statements (scale-1: totally agree) [8]. It can be also generalized that scale 1 and 2 for any item implies that the driver had negative attitude/behavior towards that domain while drivers of scale 3 and 4 refers considered to had positive attitude. DAQ assesses attitude of drivers towards road traffic safety with four domains (Alcohol, close following, overtaking and speeding). Cross tabs and binary logistic regression were applied to determine the association of attitude related variables with occurred/sustained RTCs.

Ethical clearance was obtained from Jimma University Review Board (IHRPGD/467/2019) and letter of cooperation was obtained from Jimma Zone transport authority and respective woreda offices. Both verbal and written consent was obtained from each participant before the study. Permission to participate in the study was confirmed by informed them about the research and their right to abandon the involvement was respected at any time, and confidentiality of the information was also maintained.

Results

Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Drivers The totals of 398 drivers were participated in this study making response rate of 99% from the total sample of 402 drivers. The mean age of drivers was 32.11years ± 9.133years that ranges from 20 - 60 years. Majority of them [394(99%)] were males, married [214 (53.8%)], had primary education (54.8%), earned monthly income of 2,000–3,000 Ethiopian birr, had less than 5 years of driving experience [219(55.0%)] and drivers of four-wheel vehicle [337 (84.7%)].

Drivers Attitude Towards Road Traffic Safety

From the total 16 items of DAQ applied, the minimum mean of attitude scale (2.17+1.17 SD) was observed with item of ‘traffic offences are punished too severely’ indicating that net attitude of drivers towards this item was scale 2 (agree) while the maximum mean of attitude scale (3.65+0.7SD) was seen with item of ‘definite obeying of the stop sign’ that implies as the net attitude of respondents towards this item was scale 3 (agree).

Among DAQ applied with four Likert scales, majority of the drivers claimed to have positive attitude/ scale 4/ very agree to statements with positive items (obeying stop sign, easy to obey regulations, feeling guilty to fraud and never driving on white line).

In general, the attitude of drivers varies towards different items. But, there is no driver who claimed for scale 2 attitude (disagree) for item ‘Minor traffic violations should be punished only in case of crash’ as detailed in table 1.

Association of Drivers’ Attitude towards Road Traffic Safety with Occurred Road Traffic Crashes

About 142 (35.7%) of drivers responded as they sustained road traffic crash in their driving career. The associations of drivers’ attitude towards road traffic safety with occurred road traffic crashes were established by cross tabs and binary logistic analysis with p-value less than 0.05 considered as statistically significant. Accordingly, about nine items of DAQ variables with negative statements (speed limitation problems, interest of competition, taking risks, perception of obeying regulation as childish, mimick ing peer fraud, disobey regulation when no police, wrong perception about offense punishment, alcohol drinking and overtaking in front vehicles) were identified as the correlated variables with the occurred RTC with specific odd ratio (OR), 95% confidence interval (CI) and p-values as explained in table 2 in details. There is statistically significant difference in attitudes of drivers towards those items with the occurrence RTCs. Drivers with negative attitudes/ behaviors towards these items were more likely to sustained RTCs.

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Table 1:

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Table 1. Drivers attitude towards road traffic safety by DAQ among public transport drivers of Jimma zone 2019.

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Table 2:

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Table 2. Association of drivers’ attitude towards road traffic safety with occurred road traffic crashes among public transport drivers in Jimma zone, 2019.

Discussion

Attitude of drivers towards speeding

Among the domain of drivers’ attitude towards road traffic safety, speeding perception is a key for the occurrence of RTC [9]. In the present study conducted among a total of 398 public transport drivers, majority of them (49.7%) had very negative attitude (scale 1) about speed limitation that associated with the likelihood of RTC occurrence (about 1.74 times) in comparison to those who had positive attitude/scale 4 (31.2%). Drivers who had competing interest with scale 1 (46.2%) were faced trauma about 1.8 times than others who had not interested to compete/scale 4 (32.4%).

The occurrence of RTC was higher (2.5 times) among drivers who take risk in hurry driving (scale 1) than other drivers with scale 4 where all speeding domains shows statistically significant difference among four point Likert scales of DAQ. The present finding of drivers’ attitude of speed was in agreement with previous studies [7, 10] that revealed negative attitudes (scale 1) were associated with the occurrence of RTC.

Attitude of drivers towards traffic regulation

The present study revealed that majority of public transport drivers were violated road traffic regulation within the last 12 months at least once while there were fewer drivers who strictly obey and adhere to traffic laws as assessed by items with negative statements. But, there is no significant statistical difference in allocation of drivers among the four likert scales of items with positive statements in association with the occurrence of RTC. There was a huge difference in distribution of drivers who strictly obeying stop sign/scale 4(74.6%) and those who violate stop sign (3.8%) with scale 1/totally disagree to this item. But, it was statistically evidenced that the probability of committing RTC was more likely (1.7-2.6 times) among drivers who belong to scale 1 in comparison to those with scale 4 as assessed by items with negative statements towards traffic regulations. This finding was also supported by study of Nabi et al. [7] who reported the higher (2.1-2.6 times) likelihood of occurrence of RTC among who violated the traffic law in 2001-2003 period in French by GAZEL cohort.

In the present study, majority of the drivers (40.7%) had negative attitude and behavior (scale 1) about seat belt but there is no statistically significant difference among other scales expressing level of drivers’ attitudes towards seat belt in association with the sustained of RTC/crash opposing the study of Gopaul et al. [11] who reported that about 46.7% of respondents always wore seat belts from which 93% believed strongly (scale 4) and their use was essential for safety probably due to population difference of Jimma and France. But, the present finding revealed the statistical significant difference of drivers’ attitude scales towards traffic regulations and its subsequent risk of RTC or sustained road traffic crash. This finding was also supported by studies of Riaz and Shahid [12] and Tajvar et al.[13] who conducted study among drivers in Pakistan and Iran respectively. Additionally, Yahia et al.[14] also reported there is no statistically significant gender difference among drivers’ attitude towards RTS in regards to degree of RTC occurrence.

Attitude of drivers towards alcohol drinking

Majority of the drivers (49.2%) had negative attitude and behavior of drinking and driving who voted for attitude scale 1/very agree and belief in drinking and driving while a few (28.4%) had positive attitude/scale 4/ not drink and drive which also creates statistical significant difference to occurred RTC (about 1.96 times) among two extreme groups (with scale 1 and 4) which was also in line with study of Pal Ulleberg [15] who revealed higher occurrence of RTC among those who had negative attitudes towards drinking and drive (those who drink and drive /scale 1).

Attitude of drivers towards over taking and close following The other domain used frequently to assess attitude/behavior of drivers towards RTS is over taking and close following where majority of the drivers (57.7%) in the present study claimed as negative attitude and behavior towards over taking and close following (scale 1 and 2) while a few (42.3%) were allocated to scale 3 and 4 for their perception of positive attitude/behavior towards over taking and close following which also creates statistical significant difference to sustained RTC among scales.

Association of drivers attitude towards RTS with occurred RTC

About nine items of DAQ variables with negative statements (speed limitation problems, interest of competition, taking risks, perception of obeying regulation as childish, mimicking peer fraud, disobey regulation when no police, wrong perception about offense punishment, alcohol drinking and overtaking in front vehicles) were identified as the correlated variables with the occurred RTC. The occurrence of RTC was more likely among drivers with negative attitude/behavior (scale 1) than those with positive attitude/ behavior (scale 4) towards road traffic safety. This finding was also in harmony with study of Gopaul et al [11] that showed that alcohol consumption, use of mobile phones while driving, speed and age were significantly (p > 0.001) associated with RTC. In another wing, drivers with positive attitude towards RTS had less probability to sustained RTC and this finding was also supported by study of Mirzaei et al. [5] who revealed higher knowledge, safer attitude, and safer practice were associated with a decreased number of RTC. The study of Pal Ulleberg [15] supports the presenting finding in declaring different personality subtypes of young drivers (speeding, rule violation, drinking and driving) and its relationship to risk-taking preferences to crash involvement.

Conclusion

More than one third of drivers (35.7%) were sustained road traffic crash. DAQ was applied to assess drivers’ attitude towards road traffic safety with four domains. There were statistically significant variations in drivers’ attitude towards road traffic safety domains and associated with the occurred road traffic crashes. The occurrence of RTC was more likely among drivers with negative attitudes/ behaviors (who agreed/very agreed to items with negative statements and/or who disagreed/very disagreed to items with positive statements) than those drivers with positive attitudes/ behaviors (who disagreed/very disagreed to items with positive statements and/or who agreed/very agreed to items with negative statements). Among the assessed 16 items of DAQ, about nine items with negative statements (speed limitation problems, interest of competition, taking risks, perception of obeying regulation as childish, mimicking peer fraud, disobey regulation when no police, attitude about offense punishment, alcohol drinking and overtaking in front vehicles) were determined to had statistically significant associated with the occurred RTCs. Conducting the study only at Jimma zone and involvement of fewer females in the study might be considered as a limitation of the study.

Funding

Jimma University provided funding through mega project (among won mega project in 2019 with institutional review board of number of IHRPGD/467/2019).

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Jimma University for providing funding, and all data collectors and the drivers participated in the study.