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The purpose of this chapter is to outline the rationale for and approach to enhancing community participation in traffic safety initiatives. It describes a process that practitioners can use to engage members of the public in the development of community-based solutions to traffic safety problems. The approach used draws on contemporary social theory, historical antecedents, and demonstrated best practices for effective engagement efforts.

The implications of the ideas developed in this chapter include the need for traffic safety and related agencies to develop and deploy new or expanded capacities as they implement community-level traffic safety initiatives. One such capacity is the development of greater interdisciplinary understanding of sociopolitical dynamics that support and/or inhibit the effectiveness of behavior change efforts. Another is the ability to employ practical participatory processes that engage community members so as to draw out the tacit but critical knowledge about barriers to and avenues for supporting behavior change strategies. These increase the likelihood of developing traffic safety strategies that are effective within the specific and unique culture of each community.

In this chapter we interpret traffic safety culture (TSC) in terms of data on beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors from the fourth wave of the SARTRE study to find out whether they can be interpreted in a perspective. The SARTRE study is a European-wide survey that started in 1991 and collects information on mobility, risk perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and experiences on the road (Cauzard, 1998, 2004; Cestac & Delhomme, 2012). The chapter focuses on the group of car drivers.

A principal component factor analysis was conducted to explore the underlying structure of the data set. Results suggest an underlying structure of five components which explain more than 55% of the variance. These dimensions were labeled (1) acceptance of technology and enforcement, (2) risk attitudes, (3) experienced and self-exerted behavioral control, (4) personal concern, (5) perception of other road users’ safety performance.

The influence of these five factors on safety performance (fatality rates) was estimated by regression analysis. Results show that only the second factor (risk attitudes) has a significant effect on fatality rates. As a consequence, expressive and instrumental attitudes about risk-taking should be addressed in driver training as well as information campaigns in order to improve safety culture at the level of individual car drivers.

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the rationale for and structure of organizational networks in support of traffic safety programming. It outlines the operational considerations and approaches important to both understanding network-based partnerships and improving their functionality. The chapter draws on conceptual and empirical studies of organizational networks in order to enhance the effectiveness of networks and integrate network-based approaches with the cultural orientation already present in traffic safety research and practice.

This chapter proceeds from the premise that, increasingly, efforts to impact traffic safety behaviors will be interconnected with other concerns, and that traffic safety initiatives will require engagement with organizations focused on concerns other than traffic safety. The implication of the ideas examined in this chapter is that traffic safety agencies will need to focus not just on traffic-related behaviors, but also on the strategic and operational coordination with other organizations. Doing so has the potential to create synergies that would be unachievable if agencies operation in isolation.

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.

This chapter defines what road safety advertising campaigns are and the objectives that they typically seek to achieve. The argument put forward in this chapter is that when theoretically informed in their design and sensitive to the array of potential personal, social, and cultural influences which may be at play, road safety advertising can contribute to both reinforcing and transforming contemporary traffic safety culture. This chapter offers guidance to researchers and practitioners in the field regarding relevant theory which may be applied to inform message design and evaluation.

Building a culture of safety in transportation is not dissimilar from building a culture of safety in health. Public health is widely known for protecting the public from diseases through milk pasteurization and chlorination of drinking water, and from injuries by implementing environmental and occupational safeguards and fostering behavioral change. Lifestyle and environmental changes that have contributed to the reductions in smoking and heart disease can also help change driving, walking and cycling behaviors, and environments. Stimulating a culture of safety on the road means providing safe and accessible transportation for all. The vision for a culture of traffic safety is to change the public’s attitude about the unacceptable toll from traffic injuries and to implement a systems approach to traffic injury prevention as a means for improving public health and public safety. Framing the motor vehicle injury problem in this way provides an opportunity for partnerships between highway safety and public health to improve the culture of safety.

The present chapter puts one perspective center stage and looks at the relationship between TSC and its manifestation in individuals. More specifically, we are concerned with the relationship between processes of attitude formation and attitude change. The concept of attitudes is one out of several psychological constructs which are known to have mediating influence on actual behavior. Thus, it is a possible starting point to positively influence behavior in road traffic toward higher levels of (commitment to) safety. Understanding how safety culture is internalized by individuals and how it shapes safe conduct shall be theoretically described and practically exemplified to show how this approach can become useful and relevant for practitioners in the field of road safety.

The argument is developed in three parts. In the first part, Herbert Kelman’s (1958) conceptual scheme of three stages of attitude change is presented in which the levels of compliance, identification, and internalization of values are distinguished. In the second part, it is argued that these different levels of value integration correspond with three different kinds of psychological theories which address the relationship between attitudes and deliberately conducted behavior (action). It is a well-known fact in the science of human action that there is no direct relationship between attitudes, decision making, and action. Using Kelman’s three levels of value internalization as a scheme of reference, the conditions under which persons act in line with their attitudes can be conceptualized more precisely. From a normative point of view, it is argued that persons who align their actions and attitudes with reference to socially appreciated values are said to be elaborated. They orient their conduct by an ethos of safety to which they feel committed and they are able to interact in mindful ways. We discuss some of the basic constructs at each level and underpin their importance with reference to behavioral change toward higher levels of safety with empirical findings that have been published. In a third part, we present our findings in a summarizing table and suggest a list of factors and themes which mainly correspond to one of the three stages of attitudinal change and value internalization. Finally, we outline some examples of how traffic safety interventions can be conceptualized at these different levels.

Driving for work has been identified as potentially one of the riskiest activities performed by workers within the course of their working day. Jurisdictions around the world have passed legislation and adopted policy and procedures to improve the safety of workers. However, particularly within the work driving setting, complying with legislation and the minimum safety standards and procedures is not sufficient to improve work driving safety. This chapter outlines the manner in which safety citizenship behavior can offer further improvement to work-related driving safety by acting as a complementary paradigm to improve risk management and current models and applications of safety culture.

Research on concepts associated with risk management and theoretical frameworks associated with safety culture and safety citizenship behavior are reviewed, along with their practical application within the work driving safety setting. A model incorporating safety citizenship behavior as a complementary paradigm to safety culture is proposed. It is suggested that this model provides a theoretical framework to inform future research directions aimed at improving safety within the work driving setting.