Driving versus road safety: a grass roots exploration of the salience of road safety

Road user behaviour and communications research typically interrogates micro-elements of road user attitudes and behaviour, often limited to a specific behavioural issue. Transport for NSW recently undertook research with a more “macro” perspective: a people-centric qualitative study to explore motorists’ relationship with driving and how it fits into their lives. Automatic behaviours, mood and other everyday factors were found to influence the salience of road safety on a given journey, while situational factors acted as triggers for more conscious driving behaviours. Ultimately, road safety was not regarded as a “top-of-mind” concern in the complexity of modern life.