The transformation of traffic safety culture is a primary element of the National Toward Zero Deaths (TZD) Safety initiative among state highway safety agencies and stakeholders. Only through the growth of a positive safety culture can significant and sustainable reductions in crash fatalities and serious injuries be achieved. Road users have an important role in achieving the goal of zero deaths and serious injuries. In Sweden, the origin of the Vision Zero strategy, traffic safety leaders recognize that “road users are responsible for showing consideration for having a sense of judgment and responsibility in traffic, and for complying with traffic regulations,” and that growing these elements is a component of the zero deaths initiative (Belin et al. 2012, pp. 171- 179). Thus, engagement in traffic safety by road users is an important component of a comprehensive TZD strategy. Also called “safety citizenship,” focusing on growing prosocial, traffic safety related behaviors by everyone is a strategic shift from focusing on directly impacting the behavior of an often small group engaging in risky behaviors. The strategy is to foster more active engagement by the larger majority of safe road users to influence the behaviors of the smaller group engaging in risky behaviors. The project seeks to answer several critical questions: • What is the culture of those who have a high commitment to safety? • What values, attitudes, and beliefs predict a high concern for traffic safety? • What predicts engagement in behaviors that focus on the safety of others (such as getting others to wear a seat belt, having family rules, etc.)? • What predicts acceptance of safety strategies such as automated enforcement, sobriety checkpoints, etc.? To inform this project, a literature review of published research on safety citizenship, prosocial traffic safety behaviors, and cultural factors predicting engagement in traffic safety behaviors (including support for policy) was completed. The purpose of the review was to better understand the safety citizenship behavior construct and to establish a definition of safety citizenship behavior in the context of traffic safety. This review identified various prosocial behaviors to inform the question design for constructs in the traffic safety citizenship model used for this project. Research in this area is relatively new, and so we broadly synthesized the published research from a variety of areas. Results from this literature review revealed that the construct, safety citizenship behavior, has been largely used to describe extra-role behaviors in organizations. A search of safety citizenship behavior in areas outside of the workplace yielded minimal results. To expand the use of this construct into traffic safety and to inform the traffic safety citizenship model for this project, we reviewed and synthesized published research outside of a workplace context to understand constructs similar to safety citizenship behavior in various domains. The goal is to grow prosocial traffic safety related behaviors among road users, and ultimately to eliminate crash deaths and serious injuries. (Author/publisher)
Abstract