THE SIXTH GLOBAL INTERACTIVE
FORUM ON TRAFFIC & SAFETYEvent

Moderator:	Yuto Kitamura
Panelists:	Soames Job
	George Yannis
	Susanna Zammataro
	Nicholas J. Ward

The Moderator (Dr. Yuto Kitamura) instigated the discussion by providing an overview of the lectures from each of the panelists, and then opened the floor for discussions among the panelists and called on them to respond to questions.

 

Dr. Job stated that, regarding culture and the economy, certainly the economy is one of the drivers with which we manage road safety, but it is important not to retreat to a fundamental position that it is the main driver or the only driver, and therefore low-income countries will poorly manage road safety. There are low-income countries doing well in road safety and those doing badly. The economy does drive quality of vehicles and infrastructure, but partly it is about where money is spent, and because it is a circumstance that influences how people behave. If governments are not seen to be serious about road safety, then that changes cultural beliefs about who should take it seriously. It is very important to appreciate that there is a causal reaction in the other direction, where if there is bad culture and bad road safety, that will retard economic growth. The quality and effect of road safety directly effects the economy of low- and middle-income countries.

Furthermore, regarding enforcement, Dr. Job agreed with Professor Ward’s comment that people do not listen to really sever fear outcomes. This is critical as to why enforcement is necessary. This relates to optimism bias and driver over confidence. When asked, many people believe they are a better than average driver, which must be a bias. This is key to why enforcement is critical, because enforcement can change behavior very effectively using low level fear than extremely high-level fear. The other thing to highlight about enforcement is that we should not think that we have to change attitudes to then behaviors. It will work but its not the only way to do it. The other way around is also effective, namely changing behavior will cause people to change attitudes to match said behavior.

Dr. Job concluded that it is important to be careful about how enforcement is implemented, because of norms. How enforcement is discussed can encourage good cultural norms.

 

Professor Yannis, responding to multiple questions, stated that measuring both safety performance and safety culture are tricky issues, especially concerning performance. There are several countries in the world that face issues of misclassification problems. The real size of the problem is not clear, both in terms of number of accidents and number of fatalities. Not knowing the real figures is a fundamental issue regarding road safety performance. However, what is more striking is that looking only on crashes is not enough to understand the real problems. Crash data is only meaningful if combined with exposure data, such as crashes per kilometer driven. In addition, when we have crashes and exposure, we know the size of the problem, but the causes of the problem are revealed only when crashes are correlated with safety performance indicators (KPIs) such as behavior, infrastructure, traffic, vehicles among others. Very often in safety analysis we are going in blind. Everybody underestimates the role of speeding, including the authorities and stakeholders, because we do not have data about speeding. People believe that speeding is not as frequent as we think, but when speed is measured, we can observe an astonishingly high percentage of people driving above or well above the speed limits. Good crash data needs to be combined with exposure data and KPIs. Only with good data can we identify the causes of accidents on the road.

In response to a question about speed limits, Professor Yannis stated that the more we dig into the data, the more we find new and critical problems. Only when we understand what the underlying situations are, we can get the real picture. There are a lot of new technologies that allow us to have highly useful data. Highlighting the importance of behavior change during the COVID crisis, it can be seen that more people base decisions on data than before. This is a change in culture that can also be applied into road safety. If we start measuring safety, perceptions change at all levels, bringing real change. Data is the driver for traffic safety culture change. Only by demonstrating a serious effort and good data we can demonstrate the importance of the problem.

 

Moderator ask the remaining two panelists about the understanding cultural context. How can one make a rational judgement as it depends on a cultural context? Is there always only one way to spread a message?

 

In response, Ms. Zammataro highlighted elements that bring forward the issue of culture. The value of road safety and the respect for the rules is very embedded in culture. Countries like Japan and Switzerland have a social pressure to obey the rules, even when you are alone. How values become embedded in the culture revolves around education and the community. We have seen in many different problems in remote areas that the community wields importance and influence. The other element is enforcement, and here Ms. Zammataro strongly agreed with Dr. Job on the concept of enforcement as a way to change culture. If resources are not invested, then enforcement tends to be lost. Ms. Zammataro also agreed with Dr. Job that the way enforcement is talked about is important.

 

Responding to the moderator’s question, Professor Ward gave another perspective on the role of enforcement and how one communicates about enforcement, which is how one communicates about the laws being enforced. Showing that laws were the choice of people (rather than imposed by government) demonstrates the normative expectations of the community, which then gives weight to those laws when they are enforced.

Regarding whether a particular strategy will work in every culture or just one culture, a critical aspect of understanding traffic safety culture is that there is not a one size fits all solution. Applying traffic safety culture has to be specific to the culture you are looking at. A culture-based strategy that focusses on beliefs and values has to be specific to that culture, and there may also need to be a focus on specific demographics and groups whose behavior one is trying to change and take the extra effort of understanding what those beliefs are. Whatever actions are taken need to be based on an actual understanding of the true culture of the group in question and not assumptions about that culture.

In addition, responding to a question about what countries can do to change traffic safety culture when they have limited resources, Professor Ward agreed with Ms. Zammataro that it is about communities. Traffic safety culture is something every group can do. It is something people can do as a social group. Whenever there is a group that has a culture, it is important to do something as a group to affect traffic safety. An important mindset is to consider how can people work together to make each other safer. There are things that can be done in small groups, not just relying on the government, it’s about helping each other and protecting each other.

 

Responding to questions from the participants on enforcement or education and which is more effective, Dr. Job responded that people do not resort to enforcement until they have tried education and awareness raising. Education will get some level of improvement, but enforcement will get a lot more. One of the reasons is that road safety problems are not caused by a lack of knowledge. Education fixes a lack of knowledge, but the problem is a lack of motivation. Failures on the road are often caused by motivational problems. We should really think about how to change motivations. Dr. Job also stated that it is vital to understand target audiences. Understanding the breadth of the problem and how much of the community wants the changes will reveal how enforcement should work. Dr. Job also mentioned that the media does not show a clear image of this. It is important for the majority to make more of an effort to make changes.

 

Responding to the same subject, Professor Yannis clarified that, when comparing enforcement and education, one must take into account that enforcement has a direct and important effect, but that effect is temporary. When enforcement is there, there is compliance. When there is no enforcement, compliance goes away. Enforcement is efficient but still has to be systematic. In terms of effectiveness of enforcement, not only does it change behavior, but most importantly, when it is systematically, it is the best campaign because it passes the message that someone is there to protect you and gives the right importance to the problem. When there are rules but no enforcement, the message is wrong, e.g the rules do not worth implementing. It is a question of having systematic enforcement, such as frequent, low fines, in order to demonstrate the importance of the problem through the continuous presence of enforcement where there are offenses.

Regarding education, Professor Yannis stated that education has a long-term and solid effect. If we manage to change the culture, then we can progress. The question then becomes where education should take place, and the best education is through the paradigm of parents that children future drivers imitate. Therefore, education should concern both the parents and the children.

Whatever we do, measuring is the key. We have to measure culture, performance, link culture and performance with specific analyses, see what works best, and measure the programs and the measures (e.g. measuring the enforcement level) and adopt successful practices.

 

Responding to a question about big crowds in cities, Ms. Zammataro answered that cascade and amplification processes are amplified in those cases: the big crowd gives a sense of “protection” and so people tend to take more risks and rely more on social information. That we know can have very negative consequences in terms of safety. The crowd gives a false sense of protection.

Responding to a question about privacy and camera, Ms. Zammataro stated her opinion that as most people use mobile phones, privacy is gone already, so it’s a false debate. The real issue being that of the high cost usually associated with installing and operating the system. That may function as a deterrent for the authorities for not implementing those enforcement options rather than protection of privacy. It is a complex system to put in place as it requires often changes to the law and resources to run the system efficiently.

Ms. Zammataro agreed with Dr. Jobs on the importance of community being vocal. Groups should not be discouraged, they have to be vocal about enforcement. It’s thanks to local communities being vocal that we have seen reduction of speed limits to 30km/h in many urban areas. The motivation for change is also very important and not just enforcement. The most successful campaigns have been those who make people touch with hand the human drama that road crashes create – by having them talk to survivors of accidents or people who have lost family members in road crashes.

 

In response to a question on autonomous driving, Professor Ward stated that, in the US, it has been recognized that automation does have a role for Vision Zero, but it is not seen as the only solution. It is one of the pillars that can be used to get to zero. In relation to traffic safety culture, when talking about fully automated vehicles, it will take a very long time for them to be ubiquitous, so it is not a quick solution. It is interesting to speculate how automated vehicles will contribute to traffic safety culture when there is still a mix with manual and automated vehicles. Indeed, what culture will automated vehicles be programed with – will it be, consistent with the local culture? It is also worth speculating whether one can actually use automated vehicles to model the safe behavior and create a new perceived norm for safety.

Responding to a question of attitudes in relation to traffic safety culture, Professor Ward agreed with Dr. Jobs that attitudes do lead to behavior, but the reverse is also true under certain conditions. When thinking about traffic safety culture, we need to go broader than just attitudes. There are more key concepts other than attitude that influence decision making. One is norms, another is perceived behavioral control, and prototype image, which is how people think of those who normally do the behavior. It is important to recognize the role of all these beliefs, not just attitudes.

 

The moderator thanked each of the panelists for their responses to the questions, and stated that the topics discussed in today’s symposium showed that there is more room for consideration and future discussions.