Italians imprudent driving: one in three does not use a seat belt while behind the wheel, half of the children on board without restraint devices and two out of ten young people improperly handle the phone while the car is in motion.
It is the merciless photograph taken by the User Driving Styles Observatory Research, commissioned by ANAS and conducted by Studio Righetti and Monte Ingegneri e Architetti Associati presented today as part of the conference "Road safety: zero victims objective" organized on the occasion of the world day in memory of the road victims (21 November).
The study, which analyzed the driving behaviors of a sample of 6,000 users along three different types of roads and motorways managed by Anas, shows that 28.38% of drivers do not fasten their seat belts, given that they get up when referring to front passenger (31.87%) and rear passenger (80.12%). Data very far from the average recorded in other European countries where 90% of motorists wear the front seat belts and 71% of passengers wear the rear seat belts.
Indiscipline also with regard to child restraint devices, as many as 49.47% do not use them, and for the indicator lights: 55.63% do not turn them on for overtaking or returning (76.46%), o for entry (59.20%) or exit (43.71%) from the ramp. Finally, one in ten motorists (12.41%) misuse their mobile phone while driving, a figure that jumps to 18.06% in the 18-40 age group. Going into detail, it is clear that the violations, on the whole, are committed in approximately the same percentage without distinction between city cars and sedans (11.8% and 11.3%). They increase among those who drive an SUV (13.4%) or a commercial vehicle (14.6%).
Undiscipline decreases with increasing age: if in the 18-40 age group the percentage is 30.0%, in the 40-60 year age group it drops to 28.6%, to reach 24.8% among the over 60. In general, men are the least attentive to safety regulations, except in the use of seat belts in the rear seats and in the use of child restraint systems: here the relationship is reversed.
The study analyzes some of the psychological factors that influence the lack of perception of risk underlying the behavior at the origin of road accidents, distinguishing between deliberate violations of the highway code and driver errors (e.g. oversights, maneuvers or incorrect assessments) . The behavior in violation does not in fact depend on a problem in collecting or processing the information necessary to implement the correct behavior, but on a choice influenced by psychological, psychosocial and motivational factors. In particular, the analysis recalled these factors by associating them with the data of the violations found. The analysis of risk perception was also accompanied by 17 semi-structured interviews with users of the three different types of roads and motorways surveyed.
The aim was to investigate the reasons perceived as underlying their own risky behaviors and those engaged in by other road users.
The former are mainly attributable to stress, habit, lack of civic sense, while the latter are attributable to the lack of use of direction indicators, overtaking maneuvers on the right, dangerous overtaking, risky speed.
Instead, in relation to the perception of road safety, the statements of the interviewees vary according to the type of road.
82% of the sample considered the roads to be safe or did not show a significant perception of the danger with respect to all the types of roads analyzed.