In the quarter century from 1991 through 2015, the lives of 982,307 men, women, and children have ended abruptly as the result of motor vehicle crashes in the United States. Motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death for people aged 16-24 for each year from 2012 through 2014. Statistics from the United States Department of Transportation indicate that 35,092 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2015. This represents a 7.2 percent increase from 2014, and preliminary data from the first half of 2016 indicate fatalities increased more than 10 percent compared to the first half of 2015. An average of 96 lives per day are cut short as the result of crashes on our roads. AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has a long tradition of sponsoring research to better understand traffic safety culture. The Foundation’s long-term term vision is to create a “social climate in which traffic safety is highly valued and rigorously pursued.” In 2008, the AAA Foundation conducted the first Traffic Safety Culture Index, a nationallyrepresentative survey, to begin to assess a few key indicators of the degree to which traffic safety is valued and is being pursued. As in previous years, this Traffic Safety Culture Index finds that people in the United Sates do value safe travel and desire a greater level of safety than they now experience. They perceive unsafe driver behaviors such as speeding and impaired driving as serious threats to their personal safety and generally support laws that would improve traffic safety by restricting driver behavior, even when such laws would restrict behaviors they admit to engaging in themselves. As in previous years, the survey also highlights some aspects of the current traffic safety culture that might be characterized most appropriately as a culture of indifference, in which drivers effectively demonstrate a “Do as I say, not as I do” attitude. For example, substantial numbers of drivers say that it is completely unacceptable to drive 15 mph over the speed limit on freeways, yet admit having done that in the past month. This document summarizes major national-level results for the AAA Foundation’s ninth annual Traffic Safety Culture Index and presents the data collection methodology. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting