Determinants of safety priorities in transport – The effect of personality, worry, optimism, attitudes and willingness to pay

Much research within risk has investigated risk perception and how risk behaviour is understood by the public. One goal of risk research is to understand how people perceive and interpret risk to facilitate safe behaviour. This is seen as important for many different reasons, one being because policy measures might be more effective when they address and understand individual differences in beliefs and perceptions of a target group (Steg, L., Sievers, I., 2000. Cultural theory and individual perceptions of environmental risks. Environment and Behavior 32 (2), 250-269). The main aim of this study was to investigate what is most important in regard to safety priorities. Three personality assets - anxiety, excitement-seeking and trust - were first examined. Further factors were driver optimism, worrying about transport risks, willingness to pay to increase safety, and negative attitudes toward traffic rules (as a driver). The results are based upon two questionnaire surveys carried out among a representative sample of the Norwegian public in 2004. The results showed that worry was the most important predictor of safety priorities. In addition, negative attitudes towards rules were also found to have an impact on priority. The proposed model explained 44% of the variance of safety priority. This knowledge gives additional information to improve the success of interventions because it will develop the ability to target those who consider safety to be of low priority and guide them to modify their attitudes. This may in turn increase their value of safety.