The AAA Foundation seeks to monitor the safety culture of the United States through conducting periodic surveys of the American public. This report describes the methodology and top-level results of the first of these surveys. While the term “traffic safety culture” and its operational definition are still the subject of ongoing research, the items used in this survey to assess traffic safety culture were selected for their ability to measure knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and experiences relevant to traffic safety in a way that is concrete, actionable, and permits tracking over time. The survey objectives are: To produce nationally representative estimates of traffic-safety-related knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and experiences of the U.S. public and for a number of specific subgroups defined on the basis of characteristics such as age, gender, region of the country, and others; To create a baseline measure of the traffic safety culture of the nation; To serve as the basis for conducting subsequent surveys to track trends in traffic safety culture over time, at the national level and within some specific sub-populations. This report provides an overview of the attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and experiences of the American public, and contains insights that will serve as the basis for research, educational outreach—and perhaps most importantly, dialogue—in the months and years to come. (Author/publisher)
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