J. Bantjes, Sophia du Plessis, Ada Jansen, Philip Slabbert
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
In Africa, 40% of traffic fatalities are pedestrians – the highest proportion globally. Yet little is known about driver characteristics that are associated with unsafe driving in African countries. We aimed to explore associations between driving practices that endanger pedestrian safety and motorists’ attitudes to the law (i.e. lawlessness and normlessness), controlling for sociodemographic and personality factors. We used the Response Time Method, based on Russell Fazio’s attitude paradigm, to collect information about driver behaviours, attitudes, and personality traits among a sample of 440 motorists. Male gender was associated with unsafe driving, even when controlling for the effects of personality and attitudes to the law. Unsafe driving was also associated with four dimensions of motorists’ personality, namely aggression, impulsivity, risk tolerance, and altruism, even when controlling for sociodemographic factors. Lawlessness (defined as a general disregard for the law) is also an important determinant of unsafe driving, even when controlling for sociodemographic and personality factors. These findings suggest that efforts to improve pedestrian safety in South Africa should focus on changing motorists’ attitudes to the law.
期刊介绍:
The South African Journal of Science is a multidisciplinary journal published bimonthly by the Academy of Science of South Africa. Our mandate is to publish original research with an interdisciplinary or regional focus, which will interest readers from more than one discipline, and to provide a forum for discussion of news and developments in research and higher education. Authors are requested to write their papers and reports in a manner and style that is intelligible to specialists and non-specialists alike. Research contributions, which are peer reviewed, are of three kinds: Review Articles, Research Articles and Research Letters.