This paper presents the exploratory survey of a study which examines drivers' and traffic engineers' perception of the road environment. It is primarily concerned with traffic safety in urban areas. The opinions of both typical drivers and traffic engineering professionals about a set of priority 4-arm junctions of similar characteristics were collected in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where 70% of the urban accidents occur at junctions. The intersections chosen were selected from those with the highest accident records. Male drivers were found to be involved in the majority of accidents in these sites and most were aged between 25 and 29 years. A sample of 60 male drivers within this age range was interviewed: 30 drivers had no past accident records and 30 drivers had already been involved in some kind of traffic accident. These drivers were chosen randomly either from the ones passing through the junction or parking the car next to it, or from people living in the neighbourhood. The questionnaire designed for this survey was divided in three main parts. In the first one, the questions were intended to give some additional information on drivers such as educational level, social class, driving experience, accident involvement, car usage. The second part was intended to reveal some of the driver's ideas about traffic safety and risk. Finally, the third and most important part was intended to ascertain which road the drivers thought had contributed to the cause of the accident and to define the drivers' familiarity with the junction. The study discusses drivers' and technicians' choice of attributes and groups them in nine basic categories. The paper also analyses the correlation of some of the answers regarding traffic safety with other characteristics of drivers' profile such as: occupation, age range, social category or frequency of car usage x choice of risky situation; previous accident involvement x choice of attributes of social category; social category or frequency of car usage x choice of attributes.
Samenvatting