With increasing motorization the number of highway fatalities is a serious international problem. Most nations with long histories of motorization are actively seeking and achieving decreases in the number of fatalities. In this context Estonia, the subject of this research, has established rather challenging goals for road safety improvement. The national road safety program declares that the number of fatalities should drop to less than 100 in 2015. The first step in developing measures needed to achieve this important goal is the analysis of road use attitudes and behaviours.ng goals to decrease highway fatalities is a worthy undertaking requiring the development of effective remedies. Fruitful strategies can be developed only by thoroughly understanding the fundamentals of the problem. This paper has taken two approaches; firstly to ascertain the public perception of the factors that continue to contribute to driver and pedestrian accidents and secondly to assess road-use behaviour. In combination these two elements provide the foundation for developing sound strategies. Regarding public perception, there is the recognition that the road safety in general has been considered as a serious social problem, where especially speeding and drunken driving remain the main problems. But, at the same time, the passive road safety measures (use of reflectors, seat belts) are often taken as secondary, less important safety measure. Thus there is a big conflict between the attitudes and self-behaviour of the road users and the self-responsibility of safety improvement is low. For the covering abstract see ITRD E136183.
Abstract