Dubai, United Arab Emirates.-Wednesday, April 11th 2018 [ AETOS Wire ]
- Surprisingly high ‘yes’ values, but strong contrasts among ethnical groups
- Big difference between own behavior and the observed behavior of other motorists
- Ranking of the top most unfriendly acts correlates with the main causes of death
- Rationale for unfriendly acts is grounded in time running late, as well as lack of understanding and education
This pioneering study wants to shed light on the question: ‘Does the UAE have a positive driving culture?’.
Frederik
Bisbjerg, Executive Vice President Retail i-Insured states: “This
question is passionately discussed among UAE residents and for sure
there are plenty of subjective opinions. Once again, i-Insured and
RoadSafetyUAE teamed up to dig a bit deeper in understanding UAE
motorists. The aim is to arrive at professionally researched data points
helping to streamline the efforts of the involved stakeholders trying
to make UAE’s road safer.”
Summarizing
the findings, Thomas Edelmann, Managing Director of RoadSafetyUAE shares
his opinion: “While the big majority states ‘yes’ we do have a safe and
caring road culture, we believe this is a bit of a superficial and
hollow statement. When digging deeper, the same respondents lament to
the largest part that other motorists do not show a caring attitude,
seemingly based on not understanding the ingredients of a safe driving
culture, and they can list the biggest causes of non-caring and hence
reckless driving, as well as the reasons for it. The UAE wants to
further lower accidents, injuries and fatalities, and we have to
overcome the feeling that ‘everything is in order’ and we must continue
to educating road users about the proper ingredients of a positive
driving culture and how to implement it on a daily basis.”
Surprisingly,
the top-line answer is 72% ‘yes’ we do have a positive UAE driving
culture! This value is even higher (82%) with Expat Arabs, however
Westerners have a strongly contrasting view: only 40% state ‘yes’ and
60% ‘no’. This illustrates the paradox of the UAE situation with regards
to road safety: based on the ethnic backgrounds and the previous
driving experiences vastly gained outside the UAE, the assessment of the
overall UAE driving culture varies widely. Among the biggest ethnic
demographics (‘Asians’, ‘Arabs’) the perception is very positive, but it
must be stated, that this perception can be seen problematic as it
might deter further road safety improvements.
90% think,
that we ourselves are ‘polite and caring’ drivers. However, only 34%
think that other drivers earn the same label! Interesting to see again
the divide between Asians (39%) and Westerners (21%) in the assessment
of other drivers.
To bring this
high-level assessment to live, we surveyed the opinion related to some
concrete examples, like ‘How often do you give way to others’: 65% of us
claim ‘always/very often’. However, when asked ‘How often do others
give way to you’, this value drops to 32%. Like often in research, we
have a tendency to rate our own behavior more positively than the one of
others and we believe the ‘true’ situation is rather related to the
behavior we see from others!
Another
example we selected is ‘How often do others thank you when you give way
or perform another friendly act’? In total, 39% state ‘always/very
often’, but only 5% of Westerners! Which begs the question, what is the
proper way to say ‘thank-you’ on UAE’s roads? Raising the right hand
like Westerners are used to might be viewed differently by other
demographic groups, where hand signs can be interpreted very
differently. If a little nod of the head is the right way for
Asians/Arabs, this might not even be seen by Westerners, and this might
explain the very low 5%?
Mr. Bisbjerg
adds: “In order to potentially improve the situation by carving out
concrete action points, it was very important for us to get a better
understanding about ‘The most unfriendly acts’ we experience on the
roads, as well as the reasons behind these unfriendly and dangerous
acts.”.
|
Most unfriendly ACTS (select 3)
|
MAIN REASONS for unfriendly acts (select 3)
|
|||
|
Abruptly changing lanes
|
42%
|
|
Time pressure - Running Late
|
50%
|
|
Speeding
|
38%
|
|
Diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds make a common form of politeness impossible
|
42%
|
|
Bullying and aggressive driving
|
37%
|
|
Lack of education and awareness about polite and caring behavior on the roads
|
41%
|
|
Lack of use of indicators (turn signals)
|
36%
|
|
General lack of overall politeness (not only on the roads)
|
40%
|
|
Jumping the queue
|
33%
|
|
Drivers do not know what polite and caring behavior is
|
37%
|
|
Cutting in front or behind you
|
32%
|
|
Deliberate acts of being impolite - aggression
|
37%
|
|
Tailgating
|
22%
|
|
The anonymity of drivers inside of cars makes it easy for them to misbehave
|
36%
|
|
Lack of consideration for pedestrians
|
17%
|
|
It is not important to be polite and caring on the roads
|
16%
|
|
Lack of consideration for trucks and buses
|
14%
|
|
||
|
Lack of consideration for motorbike riders
|
13%
|
|
||
|
Lack of consideration for bicycle riders
|
12%
|
|
It is
interesting to see, that the top most unfriendly acts correlate with the
main causes of death on our roads! Even more important is the insight
into the causes behind these unfriendly acts: once again and as
uncovered in some of our earlier studies, ‘Time pressure – Running late’
is the main culprit for misbehavior and reckless driving! We repeat
ourselves by stating that we need a strong education and awareness push
towards proper time management. We must leave early and plan for
possible delays on our routes!
In addition,
the lack of knowledge about polite and caring behavior is lamented by
respondents, coupled with the believe of low education in this regard.
Deliberate acts (37%) and the anonymity in our vehicles (36%) also score
high.
“We recently
launched a new topic on our on-line portal about RoadSafetyUAE’s view of
the ’10 Golden Rules for creating a positive UAE driving culture’,
which can be found on http://www.roadsafetyuae.com/10-golden-rules-positive-uae-driving-culture/.
We wish, that as many road users as possible could be exposed to these
rules, in order to create the positive UAE driving culture we all long
for.”, Edelmann concludes.
The study was
commissioned by i-Insured and RoadSafetyUAE and was conducted by YouGov
in February 2018, based on the views of a representative sample of
1,004 UAE residents.
The details of the UAE Road Safety Monitor can be found in the ‘featured’ section on: http://www.roadsafetyuae.com/statistics/.
About RoadSafetyUAE:
RoadSafetyUAE’s
vision is to contribute to reducing the number of road traffic
fatalities, injuries and accidents in the UAE. RoadSafetyUAE’s mission
is to raise the awareness for proper conduct on our roads, in an
engaging manner and on a broadly communicated and permanent basis.
RoadSafetyUAE’s award-winning platform engages with the stakeholders
traffic participants, governmental entities, the media, and more than 30
corporate social responsibility (CSR) minded partners. ‘Tips &
Tricks’ are the content backbone, provided for more than 60 topics of
road safety, all specifically relevant to the UAE. More information can
be found on www.RoadSafetyUAE.com
In
addition to i-Insured, RoadSafetyUAE partners with RTA, Ministry of
Education, Dubai Chamber of Commerce, Dubai Health Authority, Michelin,
Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Nissan, Al-Futtaim Honda, Volvo, Galadari Brothers -
Mazda, Al Ghandi Auto, MAN Trucks, Enoc AutoPro, Caltex, Careem,
dubizzle, Deliveroo, PepsiCo, Johnson&Johnson, MMI, Pernod Ricard,
Serco, MiXTelematics, WABCO, JustKidding, STS, Osram, Safety Media, Arab
Wheels and NSG. Contacts
Thomas Edelmann,
Founder and Managing Director,
RoadSafetyUAE
Mob: +971 50 55 19 216
