SARTRE is an acronym for ‘Social Attitudes to Road Traffic Risk in Europe’. The SARTRE group started to look at safety on European roads in 1991 by conducting the same driver surveys in each country. The first SARTRE study was conducted in 15 countries, the second, conducted five years later, was expanded to include 19 countries. The latest, called SARTRE 3, was carried out in 23 countries. Each country surveyed around 1,000 drivers so that, in total, approximately 24,000 drivers were interviewed. The surveys provide information on driver attitudes, behaviour and experiences (e.g. of enforcement activity) and therefore provide an excellent opportunity to compare drivers in different countries and identify measures that could improve behaviour and safety both in individual countries and throughout Europe. This document is intended to report some of the main findings of the SARTRE survey to a Europe-wide audience. In particular it compares the attitudes and behaviour of drivers, examines how drivers feel about traffic regulations, considers how cultural and social factors influence safety and discusses which measures could be taken to make European drivers safer. (Author/publisher)
Abstract