Applying the Traffic Safety Culture Approach in Low- and Middle-income Countries

Abstract

Abstract The Traffic Safety Culture (TSC) approach has been applied primarily in high-income countries (HICs), yet the great majority of the burden of road trauma falls on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where it constitutes a humanitarian crisis. The UN Decade of Action for Road Safety established road safety in LMICs as a priority issue and launched a plan to address it. Road safety has subsequently been incorporated into the international development agenda via the Sustainable Development Goals. Characteristics of road user behavior, governance, infrastructure, enforcement, and health services in LMICs have led to assertions that many lack a “safety culture” or, more specifically, a “traffic safety culture.” While this invites the suggestion that a TSC approach would have value in LMICs, the question raised in this chapter is whether a psychosocial approach like TSC, developed and applied in HICs, is transferable to LMICs. This is first explored by examining the critique of the assumption that commonly studied psychological processes are universal, noting examples that are relevant to road safety. Cross-cultural psychology studies show that some of the psychological processes commonly studied in HICs differ in important ways in LMICs, while broader comparative research based on anthropology and sociology demonstrates the important influence of religious and cultural factors, economic and infrastructure conditions, institutional capacity and governance. The sociological construct of governmentality provides insight into why public compliance with traffic safety law may be lower in LMICs, and why this situation is likely to take a protracted period of time to change. Given the broader context of road safety in LMICs, the Road Safety Space Model (RSSM) provides a useful framework for identifying the economic, institutional, social, and cultural factors that influence a particular road safety issue in a particular country. This has implications for methodological approaches to TSC in LMICs, as less structured, more ethnographic methods are arguably more appropriate. An analysis of a typical TSC model, drawing on research from LMICs, demonstrates that the model assumes a particular hierarchy of elements (values, behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, prototypical image, control beliefs), and relationships between them, which may not be true in LMICs. It is therefore more challenging to apply TSC in LMICs, particularly making the transition from identification of the TSC values and beliefs that lead to behavior to the development of an intervention to bring about changes in behavior. TSC is undoubtedly a promising approach in LMICs; however, its first steps should incorporate qualitative approaches and recognize the wide range of factors that are relevant to TSC; use of the RSSM would facilitate such a process. There is scope for further research to refine models of TSC, to determine the best mix of methods to use, and to explore the role of governmentality and its implications for TSC. In the interim, practitioners should strive to understand and take into account the broader social and cultural factors that influence behavior in the particular LMIC where they are working.