A comparison between Swedish and Nigerian taxi drivers.

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 1.2 million people were killed in road traffic accidents and as many as 50 million were injured in 2004. Vulnerable road users (e.g. pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, rickshaw- and cart-drivers) in low- and middle-income countries shoulder a large proportion of the global burden of road traffic deaths and serious injury. The elderly, children and disabled are especially vulnerable. While road traffic accident deaths in high-income countries are projected to decrease by 27% between 2000 and 2020, they are projected to increase by 83% in low- and middle-income countries. One of the World Health Organization's concluding recommendations for the future was therefore to "enhance programmes of law enforcement with public information and education campaigns". One problem with this is, however, that we know very little about how road users in low- and middle-income countries perceive the traffic environment and why they make the decisions they do. This is because much research focuses on European or American road users while, for example, African road users are hardly ever represented. Research findings from high-income countries can sometimes be successfully used even in low- and middle-income countries but this is far from always the case. One reason as to why research findings in road safety are not always globally applicable is that the traffic environment is very different in different parts of the world, but also because of ideological bias in research. While most accident literature is based on "rational" approaches where accidents are seen as preventable many people in low-income countries have a completely different worldview where pre-destination plays an important role. In an attempt to further the knowledge about African road users, a small pilot study was conducted comparing Nigerian and Swedish taxi drivers. The study was based on the theory of planned behaviour and addressed behaviours such as speeding, drinking and driving, not using seat belts and driving a vehicle with bad tyres. This pilot study is the first in a series of studies. The results and their implications for the future studies is therefore discussed. For the covering abstract see ITRD E138091. This paper is available from http://www.ictct.org/workshops/07-Beijing/42Warner164171.pdf.