essay on importance of traffic education

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Importance of Traffic Safety Education at the School Level

Introduction, current trends, young people and driving, the graduated licensing system, special niches for school traffic education, works cited.

Traffic safety education at the school level is meant to provide the students with lifetime skills for maneuvering in the public roads and highways. The importance of learning these skills at school level is increasing, since more and more students are nowadays driving to school. Those not driving are riding either bicycles or motorcycles. All of these kinds of students need to be provided with special education on their safety and the safety of other road users when they are on the road. Traditionally, this has been integrated into the school systems, and students have benefited from them. The last ten years have shown a marked reduction in overall traffic accidents and fatalities.

But with the ongoing financial crisis, the rules are changing. What was previously treasured for its invaluable contribution to the safety of the general public is now being regarded only in terms of its budgetary requirements. And, in the backdrop of what is regarded as more crucial needs, traffic education in school has slowly begun to be discarded. There is simply no luxury budget to accommodate this course. This says something about the financial priorities within Washington. Perhaps the information divulged herein will serve to persuade all concerned bodies that continued support for the driving program is critical.

Observations show that more and more students are being enrolled into secondary schools having reached the legal driving age. There are several reasons for this. For one, more students are completing year 12 of learning. Secondly, there is an increase in the number of students who are commuting between school and work as part-time students. Then lastly, the number of students who live independently from their parents has increased considerably. These factors, combined, have resulted in a marked increase in the total number of students driving to school.

Besides the students already driving to school, there is a huge majority of other young people who, daily, have to grapple with the ever increasing traffic snarl ups. These young people need to be able to maneuver their way through the traffic of the cities, and any knowledge they may have about safety comes to play then. Withdrawing a course that teaches them how to survive in the highways then is like denying them a chance to exercise their rights on the roads. After all, if the young people don’t know their rights, they aren’t likely to defend them, even when they are clearly taken advantage of by other road users. For example, pedestrians have fundamental rights. Without knowledge of these rights, they can easily be mistreated on the roads without any legal recourse.

Now young drivers show a conscious attempt at driving carefully. They have an inherent need to prove that they can handle themselves on the highways. They are also likely to be more observant about any changes within the environment out and within the car. But despite this, their relative inexperience and certain habits derived from their youthful culture make them some of the most vulnerable driver groups. In addition, they pose higher risks of crash accidents when they travel as groups in the cars. Overall, young drivers in their first year of driving are thrice as likely as experienced people to suffer from road accidents (TAC, 2004). In fact, the most significant cause of death amongst young people between 15-25 years is road accidents.

There are several reasons why young people are at high risk of road accidents. As already said, they are inexperienced. This particular factor is compounded by the fact that most of them tend to perceive themselves as more competent than they actually are. Hence, they tend to take more risks when driving. They, on average, tend to drive for long distances, disregarding road and environmental conditions, and even their own physical conditions like exhaustion. Most of them are also driven by sensation-seeking motivations. Young people carrying other passengers have in particular been observed to be more likely to get involved in accidents. All these factors make these young drivers potential hazards, as long as they are ignored by the education system.

According to statistics gathered during 2006 and 2007, young people have the highest fatalities resulting from road accidents. The 21-30 age group leads with a fatality rate of 21.5%. They are followed by the 15-20 year olds at 16.2% (Mischelle, 2008). The only other age group that even comes close to these fractions is that of people above 74 years old, and these have been explained away by the fact that they are more likely to die from an accident that a younger person would survive. These statistics only emphasize the critical need for formal education on driving by the young people. If ignored, the figures may increase to unprecedented levels, what with the ever faster but more fragile cars coming out of the production lines.

Traffic education should not be considered to be any different from any of the other subjects taught in schools nowadays. If anything, due to its immediate and critical application on our highways, it probably should attain an even higher status than some other conventional subjects. And if it were to be thus integrated into the education structure, then the prevailing laws should see to its satisfactory funding. This is because article 9, section 1 of Washington State Constitution clearly shows the paramount responsibility that the state has towards providing ample provisions for the education of all children residing within that state (Margaret, N.D.). In other words, were traffic education mainstreamed into the curriculum, the state would be obliged to provide funding for it.

The details of the Washington State Constitution article clearly place upon the legislature the powers to define a public school, and any crucial courses within it. Additionally, the public schools thus identified are supposed to be funded through state, not local, funds. Thus, public schools benefited from a full funding by the government. While this was definitely well-intentioned, it also placed a huge load on the state funds. The load increased further when the state was made, through a court act, to fully support even the handicapped, bilingual and remedial students. Some public transport costs for the students in these schools were also included in these responsibilities (Margaret, N.D.). With such a load, the state resources have for a long time been tittering on the edge. The ongoing financial crisis was the last straw. Perhaps, with better foresight, better allocation of resources to the education system could have been implemented. Then critical part of the education like traffic studies would not have to be eliminated.

With the credit crunch and the need to keep road accidents in check, new and revolutionary ideas are being hatched. Some states have instituted regulations that seek to reduce the number of accidents from young people. For example, Washington has a graduated licensing system whereby the young person gets awarded a learner’s license first, then an intermediate license, and finally the full license. Award of these sequential licenses is based on age and experience of the young driver. However, these regulations are at a significant disadvantage due to the fact that a driver’s age can only be ascertained if he or she is pulled over by the roadside for a close checkup. This is a time consuming exercise, and rarely implemented fully (Mathew, 2006). Thus, even while these regulations are in place, they don’t work as well as they ideally should. Their efficacy would be greatly increased if traffic education continued to be taught in schools.

Another reason why traffic safety education should continue within schools is that conditions keep changing out there in the highways. The laws governing drivers within specific states keep on being modified. Having a formal way by which the students can be alerted of these changes within the schools can mean the difference between life and death in some instances. For example, in 2007, Washington Traffic Safety Commission instituted a law restricting the speeds of cars moving near schools, in a bid to reduce fatality through road accidents. At the same time, they put up flashing yellow beacons as an effective way of reducing speeds by motorists (WTSC, 2007). This was done in light of the fact that children below 13 years usually have problems judging distance and speed of approaching cars. Without a formal way of being informed of such events, student drivers may be at a distinct disadvantage, and may continue to pose road hazards, unwittingly.

An area rarely covered by conventional traffic rules is passenger safety. This refers to the safety of everyone within a car who is not presently driving. With the increasing means of motor transport, both private and public, young people are increasingly engaging in dangerous behaviors when being transported as passengers. A huge fraction of young people involved in accidents are found not to have worn safety belts, and even to have been engaging in risky activities within the car (Leonard, 1991). More often than not, these behaviors are influenced by peer pressure. A formal system by which these traits can be eradicated needs to be instituted and maintained, and this can best happen within a school system. There, even excursions can be organized for the students to be taught practically about these regulations and their importance (Peter, N.D.).

Significant fractions of the young people ride bicycles, either for recreation or as a way through traffic. However, some of these young cyclers don’t know the laws governing them as cyclists, and sometimes aren’t even competent on the bicycles. Their ignorance on any of these fronts can easily become fatal, unless they get exposed to a formal way of learning the vital information. Hence within the traffic education structure, there should be a provision for cyclists, who should initially train within the school compound before being allowed to venture into traffic. The experience gained during this period will prove useful even later when the students get to drive cars (Peter, N.D.)

Traffic education, when integrated within the school curriculum, can be made to have a pre-license phase. This phase is distinct from the conventional traffic education in the sense that the student is not taught how to drive or ride. Instead, the individual attitudes and decision-making abilities of the students are shaped to conform to the standards needed on the highways (Peter, N.D.). Hence, in a sense, this pre-license education is more theoretical than applied, but its importance in the overall well being of the student in traffic can not be denied.

Studies all over the world show that the highest fraction (about 74%) of all road accidents is caused purely by human factors like negligence, drunkenness and so on. Environmental factors come a distant second at 14.5%, and vehicle factors are the least contributing of the three at (10.2%). The environmental factors include daylight, lack of adequate pedestrian space and rush hour traffic. Vehicle factors are mainly faulty brakes and tires (Vogel, 2004). Obviously if the human factors were to be reduced, the incidences of road accidents would significantly be reduced. And one way of reducing the road accidents is by enlightening the people, especially the young, through a formal education process.

All in all, the realities of the highway accidents simply don’t leave a sound reason for the withdrawal of traffic education from schools. If anything, it only makes the course even more vital to the young minds in the school system. Instead of doing away with it, strategies should be hatched to try and deal with the financial crisis. For example, partnerships with private traffic education companies may help ease the burden on the government. This may even actually improve the quality of the courses by making what is taught more relevant and updated. Whatever is done however, traffic safety education should remain a core course within the school systems.

Vogel, L. and Bester, C.J. 2004 A relationship between accident types and causes. Web. 

Leonard Evans Traffic Safety and the Driver Science Serving Society 1991, pg 75.

Margaret Plecki N.D. Current issues in Washington State School Finance. 2009. Web. 

Mathew L. Wald 2006 Licensing restrictions save young driver’s lives The New York Times. Web.

Mischelle Weedman-Davis 2008 Seattle Washington Accident Law Blog. Web. 

Peter Allens N.D. Administrative guidelines for traffic safety education. 2009. Web. 

WTSC (Washington Traffic Safety Commission) 2007 School Zone grants NR. Web. 

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Essay on Traffic Education & Its Importantce: Keys to Success

Do you have a driving license? Are you a good driver who knows and follows all the rules?

Have you ever been involved into an accident?

These days, more and more people get their licenses and drive cars, since it is one of the most convenient and quickest ways of getting around. As the number of cars and drivers grows, the number of traffic jams and accidents also increases.

This is why it is so important to get proper traffic education or, at least, write an informative and a well-organized essay on traffic education.

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An Open Access Journal

• Original Paper
• Open access
• Published: 12 March 2019

The effect of road safety education on the relationship between Driver’s errors, violations and accidents: Slovenian case study

• Darja Topolšek   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1886-0688 1 ,
• Dario Babić 2 &
• Mario Fiolić 2  

European Transport Research Review volume  11 , Article number:  18 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

One of the pillars of road safety strategies, in almost every country in the world, is training and education. Due to the diversity and different extents of evaluation methods, the influence of educational and training programs on traffic safety is still limited. The aim of this research is to evaluate the effect of the Slovenian educational program “I still drive, but I cannot walk”. For this purpose 183 participants, divided into two groups: ones who participated in the program and others who did not, fulfilled the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) in order to identify their most common errors and violations. The results, based on the best model of multi-group moderator effect, indicate that the link between Violations and Accidents is significantly different between those who participated in the program and those who did not. This link is weaker among the respondents who participated in the program compared to others who did not. This may lead to the conclusion that the group of drivers who participated in the program has a “weaker” Violations resulting in accidents.

1 Introduction

Road accidents represent a significant social problem since 25,500 people were killed on the roads of the European Union in 2016 with more than 135,000 injured [ 10 ]. The total damage of road accidents is very difficult to estimate as it does not only include the cost of treatment and material damage, but also indirect damages in the form of: reduction of job opportunities, loss of working ability, inability to perform daily activities, direct reproductive costs of medical or professional rehabilitation, indirect reproductive police costs, court proceedings, insurance companies, etc. Depending on the Member State, it is estimated that these losses amount from 1% to even 3% of gross domestic product [ 38 ].

For this reason, road safety is one of the key focuses of the European Commission, which adopts a new European Road Safety Action Program every ten years. The main task of the Program is to reduce the number of fatalities on EU roads. Since the overall road safety depends on the interaction of three main elements: human, road and vehicle, one can conclude that traffic accidents represent a failure of the whole traffic system (interaction between the three elements). For a long time, human error was most often considered as the main and more or less fatal cause of road safety problems since humans are, by nature, subject to errors. Although humans make a lot of errors, these errors are not always the true cause of accidents. Namely, a different phenomenon related to the road itself or the vehicle may trigger the human error and thus be the true cause of an accident. This is why the modern road safety strategies clearly differentiate the factors that truly cause accidents, whether they are human, environmental, vehicular, etc. Such a differentiation may lead to more diverse and efficient solutions directed toward preventing human errors by acting on their identified causes, and by promoting a better ergonomics of the driving system in accordance with human capacities and weaknesses [ 8 ].

In addition to the mentioned differentiation, training and education are one of the pillars of road safety strategies and solutions for increasing road safety. In almost every country in the world road safety education is, to a certain extent, part of formal education system. It is also a constituent part of initiatives, programs and activities outside the formal education. However, although there are plenty of road safety education programs, the number of those that are followed by detailed evaluation is rather limited [ 7 ]. Different and/or poor evaluation methods may be the reason why several studies failed to prove the positive outcomes of these programs [ 9 , 19 , 31 , 33 , 34 , 36 ].

On the other hand, with better evaluation methods and research on drivers’ education on road safety, recent studies [ 21 , 30 ] showed statistically significant reduction in road accidents. The studies indicated that teens who underwent the education program were less likely to be involved in accidents during their first two years of driving, compared to the teens who did not go through the education. Based on the analysis of effectiveness of road safety education in Nebraska, the authors Shell et al. [ 30 ] concluded that the non-educated group was 1.22 times more likely to get in an accident than those who underwent the education program. In their analysis, authors took into account key demographic factors such as age, sex, race/ethnicity, urbanicity and household income.

A more large-scale study examined the safety performance of teen drivers who underwent the education program and those who did not [ 21 ]. The study was conducted in two stages. Firstly, a sample of teen drivers was surveyed prior to completing the educational program and their accidents and convictions were compared once they got their provisional license. In the second stage, historical records were used to examine the accidents and convictions of a much larger population of Oregon teens who had and had not completed the approved educational program [ 21 ]. The authors concluded that the safety effects of approved educational program are either neutral (based on the first part of the study) or cautiously optimistic (based on the results of the second part).

Since from the above mentioned one can conclude that there are gaps in the evaluation methods and different strategies used in the available literature, further research is needed in order to get better insight on the influence of educational programs on road safety. In order to develop efficient training and education activities, it is primarily necessary to identify common human errors and violations. A frequently used method for this is Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ), originally developed in Britain by [ 26 ].

The DBQ is based on the theoretical taxonomy of aberrant behaviours and represents a psychometric instrument and accident predictor. The main distinction between errors and violations is based on the assumption that they have different psychological origins and demand different modes of remediation. Errors are defined as “the failure of planned actions to achieve their intended consequences”, while violations are “deliberate deviations from those practices believed necessary to maintain the safe operation of a potentially hazardous system” [ 26 ].

The main purpose of this research is to evaluate the DBQ factors used to develop the best model of multi-group moderator effect among drivers who attended the Slovenian educational program “I still drive, but I cannot walk” compared to those who did not attend the program. The program is organized by the Institute for Innovative Safe Driving Education “ Vozim ” which was founded on the initiative of young paraplegics/victims of road accidents. Since 2008, the Institute has been implementing a preventive program “I still drive, but I cannot walk”, focused on future young drivers between the age of 15 and 22. An innovative interactive road safety program is based on personal stories of victims, injured in road traffic accidents, who through their own experience provide direct information related to the importance of safe driving and compliance with road traffic regulations. Through personal stories told by people injured in road traffic, young people get the insight into their life before the accident, the car accident and life after it. In this way, they become aware of the importance of safe and responsible driving and possible consequences if disregarding them. Young people therefore learn firsthand about the causes of traffic accidents, tips for safe driving and as well as the lives of the disabled and their “new life” after rehabilitation, thereby encouraging the destigmatization of physically handicapped individuals. Through the stimulated discussions and questions, participants actively shape the content of the lectures. In this way, participants and disabled persons have more personal contact and share more intimate details, which ultimately results in their connection on deeper level. With this, participants, get clear message that traffic accidents are real and do not happen just “to other people” but may also happen to them. Based on what they heard during program, young participants may “think twice” about what may happen before they engage in risky driving.

The main goal of this research is to evaluate how this unique approach affects driver’s errors and violations and how they are connected to the frequency of traffic accidents caused by young drivers who participated in the program and those who didn’t.

2 Conceptual framework, survey and hypotheses

Figure  1 shows the conceptual framework with the hypothesized model. The framework consists of twenty-seven (27) items of the DBQ questionnaire, which are symbolized by variables DBQi, i = 1,2,4…28 (3 is excluded based on recommendation of authors [ 16 , 17 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]). Two DBQ factors (Errors and Violations) and accidents are represented as the number of accident caused by participant.

The conceptual framework

The main aim of this framework is to evaluate the effect of Errors and Violations on the number of accidents caused by a participant. As mentioned in the introduction, the aim of this study is to evaluate the DBQ factors used to develop the best model of multi-group moderator effect among drivers who participated in the Slovenian road safety program “I still drive, but I cannot walk”, compared to those who did not attend the program. In addition, the analysis of the impact of these behaviours on the number of accidents caused by the two studied groups is conducted. Based on this research gap the following two hypotheses were explored:

H1. The road safety education program “I still drive, but I cannot walk” has a moderation effect on the relationship between Errors and Accidents ; this relationship is “weaker” for those who participated in the program than for those who did not.

H2. The road safety education program “I still drive, but I cannot walk” has a moderation effect on the relationship between Violations and Accidents ; this relationship is “weaker” for those who participated in the program than for those who did not.

The main aim of this research is therefore to determine the difference between how Violations and Errors affect the Accidents depending on whether the driver participated in the Slovenian road safety program “I still drive, but I cannot walk”, or not. The “weaker” relationship in this case means, that those who did participate road safety program may cause less accident derived from Errors/Violations than those who did not attend the program.

2.1 Instruments

The questionnaire was divided in two sections. The first part consisted of 27 driver behaviour questions that were selected from the previous versions of the DBQ [ 16 , 17 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. The questionnaire was designed to evaluate the effect of certain control variables on the behavioural factors. In this case it was used to evaluate the differences between “safe” driving behaviour depending on the participation in the education program. Respondents were asked to indicate how often they commit each of the violations or errors showed in Table  1 , when driving a car on a 5-point Likert scale from “Never” to “Nearly all the time”.

The second part contained demographic questions regarding age and gender as well as information related to the driving experience, their driving habits (how often do they drive a car: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly), estimated annual distance driven and accidents in the past years.

2.2 Participants

The data was collected over four week period in 2017 by means of online surveys. The sampling strategy was intended to gather data from two different driver groups. The first group consisted of people who had participated in the road safety educational program “I still drive, but I cannot walk”. The second group was composed of young drivers (nearly the same age) who did not attend the education program.

In total 183 participants fully completed the questionnaire. Of that number, 54.6% were the drivers who participated in the program and 45.4% the ones who did not. The majority of the participants were female (72.1%) between 20 and 29 years old (21.1% below 20), and they all have valid driver’s licence (35% for less than 2 years and 34% from 2 to 5 years).

2.3 Data analysis

As mentioned before, the aim of the study is to evaluate the DBQ factors used to develop the best model of multi-group moderator effect among two groups of drivers and thus evaluate the efficiency of the educational program “I still drive, but I cannot walk”. Therefore, we used the exploratory factor analysis in order to indetify the nature of the latent factors (constructs) and to estimate their indicator items loadings [ 13 ].

Using covariance-based structural equation modelling the DBQ variables and road accidents were carried in the modelling of moderated mediation in order to investigate the relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable and the kind of the mediating variables. In order to model the moderating effect for latent construct, an alternative method was used for assessing the effect of moderator variable in the model in covariance-based structural equation modelling - Multi-group CFA. The critical ratio difference test which represents the parameter estimate divided by its standard error; as such, it operates as a z-statistic in testing that the estimate is statistically different from zero was used. For the hypothesis to be rejected the test values needs to be > ±1.96 with the probability level of 0.05.

The descriptive statistics of the measured data was investigated with the emphasis on the analysis of normality because of disturbed accuracy of model validation if the data are non-normal [ 35 ]. Normality tests are usually conducted with the skewness index (│SI│ < 3) and kurtosis index (│KI│ < 7) of the data.

3.1 Exploratory factor analysis

The responses to the 27 DBQ items were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), using the Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) algorithm, with additional Promax rotation (and Kaiser normalization). PAF was our preferred method for estimation, given that it does not rely on the assumption of multivariate normality, which can definitely be treated as an advantage [ 11 ].

Different research about the DBQ questionnaire have implicated that the subsequent factor model can be articulated by four, three or two essential factors [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 16 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 28 , 29 , 32 ].

The possibility that the factor analysis may be used without any concerns was tested by two tests: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin KMO test and the Bartlett’s test of sphericity (BTS) [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. The BTS value was significant (χ 2  = 1225.173 with df = 231 and p  < 0.001), while the KMO value was 0.846 > 0.5. According to the recommendation of some authors [ 12 , 18 , 27 ], the achieved BTS and KMO values imply that the EFA can be reliably conducted in further research.

For the factors extraction process, the principal axis factoring (PAF) algorithm with the Promax rotation was used. The Scree plot and Eigen value were inspected to determine the optimal number of factors. Both of them suggested the presence of only two factors. The two factors explained the 43.75% of the variance. According to [ 13 ], only those items which are significantly loaded on corresponding factors (loadings > 0.45; communalities over 0.5) were retained in the model.

We labelled the first factor Errors because it contains items related to errors or lapses. The second factor was labelled Violations because of high loading items reflecting aggressive violation or Ordinary violations [ 4 , 16 , 20 ].

Factor loadings of two-factor structure can be seen in Table  2 .

3.2 Confirmatory factor analysis

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed in order to test the fit of the initial derived factor model to the exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The maximum likelihood (ML) method was used to estimate all model parameters at first. While estimating the parameters, the difference between the data-based covariance matrix and the model-implied covariance matrix was minimized [ 14 ]. The goodness of fit indicates proper fit of the model because all of fit measures are higher than threshold ranges: Normed fit index (NFI = 0.913), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI = 0.986), Comparative Fit Index (CFI = 0.995), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA = 0.032), Standardized Root Mean Residual (SRMR = 0.0402) (Byrne 2009). Convergent and discriminant validity were also tested. Both the adequate composite reliability and average variance extracted were inside the interval and it can be concluded that there are no validity concerns.

3.3 Structural equation modelling results

This study applies two variables, namely Errors and Violations, derived from the DBQ and a variable named Accident, representing the number of accidents caused by a participant. Maximum likelihood estimator in structural equation modelling was used to determine the probability values ( p -value) in order to identify the research hypothesis as the prior in the empirical study.

We first tested the global model, measuring the effect of Errors and Violations on Accidents (number of traffic accident caused by driver). This model fits well to the data (χ2 = 115.306; df = 181; GFI = 0.948 NFI = 0.912; CFI = 0.987; RMSEA = 0.021; SRMR = 0.042). It was predicted that Driver who makes more Errors causes more traffic accidents, but this path has a significant and negative effect on Accidents (− 0.34, p  < 0.05). As predicted, Table  3 shows that Violations have significant and positive effect on Accidents (0.294, p  < 001). The full model is shown in Table 3 .

3.4 Moderating structural equation modelling results

After the measurement model has been validated, the next step was to assemble these constructs in the moderated structural equation modelling. The main problem of this research was focused on the difference between two groups of drivers. The first group consisted of drivers who participated in the road safety educational program “I still drive, but I cannot walk” and the second group of the ones that did not.

The moderator-mediator in the form of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to examine the interrelationship among the two mentioned groups.

In this case, the effect of Errors and Violations on Accidents upon a multi-group analysis is performed. The results indicate that the relationships in our model are different between the two groups in one case. The link between Violations and Accidents is significantly different between those who participated in the program “I still drive, but I cannot walk” and those who did not (Z = − 1.313**) as shown in Table  4 . This link is stronger among the participants who did not participate in the program (β = 0.646, p  < 0.001) compared to the others who did (β = 0.252, p  < 0.05). This indicates that the drivers who participated in the program obey the traffic regulations and are more responsible when driving, meaning that they may violate the regulations less and thus cause less accidents. Other relationships do not present significant differences between the groups. Based on this, it can be concluded that the hypothesis H2 is verified, while the hypothesis H1 cannot be verified.

For analyzing possible differences between male and female participants the Multiple-Group Analysis was conducted. The results show that for both paths (Errors-Accidents and Violation-Accident) groups are not different at the model level as well as at the path level. This result implies that, even though with lower male sample, gender of participants did not affect the “strength” of the relationship between Errors-Violations and Accidents, i.e. there are no statistically significant differences between male and female participants.

4 Discussion

Educational programs represent one of the core road safety measures in most of the countries around the world. However, the efficiency of these programs and their positive effect on overall road safety is still unknown to a certain extent. One of the main reasons for this is the diversity of used strategies and evaluation methods. Nevertheless, recent studies [ 21 , 30 ] show that with improved educational approaches and evaluation methods, relatively small but still statistically significant reduction in road accidents, involving drivers who attended the programs, is possible.

Based on the mentioned gaps and positive findings in the available literature, the main purpose of this research was to evaluate the efficiency of the Slovenian educational program “I still drive, but I cannot walk”. The program is based on the personal contact between participants (young drivers) and disabled persons. In this way, young drivers, who do not have enough experience, firsthand hear and see what may happen with the risky driving. The aim of this paper was to evaluate how this unique approach affects driver’s errors and violations and their connection to the frequency of traffic accidents caused by young drivers who participated in the program and those who didn’t.

In order to identify common human errors and violations, the Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) was used to examine the moderation effect of a variable, namely the participation in the program (categorical variable), in the relationship path between exogenous and endogenous constructs. This approach also allowed us to assess how well our conceptual model as a whole fits the data.

The test of a full model (regardless of whether they did/did not participate in the program) measuring effect of Errors and Violations on Accidents showed that the relationship between driver’s Errors and number of Accidents is significantly negative. This means that the drivers who make more errors do not cause more accidents. On the other hand, the drivers who make more Violations are more susceptible to cause traffic Accidents.

The moderator-mediator in the form of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used in order to examine the interrelationship between the two analysed groups (drivers who participated in the program and those who did not). The results of the effect of Errors and Violations on Accidents based on the multi-group analysis show that the link between Violations and Accidents is “weaker” among the participants who participated in the program, compared to those who did not. This indicates that the drivers in the first group became more aware and responsible after the program. In other words, the participants who attended the Slovenian road safety program “I still drive, but I cannot walk” may violate traffic regulations less and thus cause less accidents compared to those who did not participated in the program. In addition, difference of gender was not found meaning that the relationship between Errors-Violations and Accidents is the same for male and females.

The limitation of this study is mainly related to the fact that data collection was conducted in a relatively short period after the educational program took place. In the future, after each education period the driving behavior of the participants who attended the education should be investigated in order to get bigger dataset and stronger proof of here presented results. Also, the driving behavior of the participants investigated in this study should be periodically checked in longer time period, i. e. with the increase of their experience. In that way the long-term effect of the program may be determined since it is known that driving experience is negatively correlated to the risk of accidents and injuries [ 1 , 37 ].

The relationship between driver’s Errors, Violations and the number of Accidents should be analysed in a longer period of time in order to get a deeper insight on the effect of educational programs on the drivers’ behaviour.

5 Conclusion

A Driver Behaviour Questionnaire (DBQ) was used to determine most common errors and violations and to develop model of multi-group moderator effect among drivers who attended the Slovenian educational program “I still drive, but I cannot walk” compared to those who did not attend the program. Results of a multi-group analysis showed indicated that the relationships between Violations and Accidents are different between the two groups (drivers who participated in the program and those who did not), indicating that the drivers who participated in the program may cause less Violations resulting in accidents. Results also indicate that the relationships between Errors and Accidents do not present significant differences between the groups. From all the above, it may be concluded that the program had a positive effect on the behaviour of young people who participated in it, meaning that they may ultimately be more responsible drivers and thus cause less accidents. These results show that more personal contact based on the empathy, emotions and mutual understanding may be more efficient in increasing awareness of the young drivers. Ultimately, this study represents a positive methodology for evaluation of a road safety educational program and as such provides significant scientific contribution.

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Darja Topolšek

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DT prepared: the idea and research gap, a survey (prepared a survey, cooperated with the Institute for Innovative Safe Driving Education “Vozim”), the SEM model, and the results. DB prepared: summary, literature review, discussion and conclusion. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Topolšek, D., Babić, D. & Fiolić, M. The effect of road safety education on the relationship between Driver’s errors, violations and accidents: Slovenian case study. Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. 11 , 18 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12544-019-0351-y

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• Driver’s education
• Traffic safety

Traffic education

By traffic education we mean all educational activities aimed at positively influencing road user behaviour, with the exception of more general public communication campaigns (see SWOV fact sheet Public communication ). The activities are mainly aimed at increasing knowledge, insight, skills and motivation. In principle, traffic education is relevant to all road users, young and old, in all road user roles: lifelong traffic education. However, little is known about the effect of traffic education on crash involvement. It is also virtually impossible to study properly. Effects on (observed) road user behaviour and knowledge, if they have been studied at all, appear to be very limited at best. Good - effective - education in any case requires logical connections between the road safety problem, the current and intended behaviour and the didactic method. Formulating educational goals (general goals, main goals and learning goals) is of great importance for educational activities and evaluating their effectiveness.

In the Netherlands, traffic lessons are a compulsory component of the primary school curriculum. In secondary education, traffic is not a compulsory subject, but (a small) part of two of the 58 educational core goals for the lower grades. The attainment targets for upper secondary education do not include road user behaviour. Traffic education for (young) adults mainly consists of theoretical and practical driver training for the various means of transport ((light) moped, car, motorcycle). Driver training falls outside the scope of this fact sheet; see SWOV fact sheet Driver Training and driving tests . In addition, there are various, voluntary courses (practical and online) for specific target groups. These often include training and information aimed at young adults and senior citizens, as well as more general skills training.

Following the example of the European LEARN! project [1] , we understand traffic education to mean all educational activities that aim to positively influence road user behaviour. These activities mainly focus on:

• Gaining knowledge and understanding of traffic rules and situations;
• Developing and improving skills through training and experience;
• Strengthening and/or changing attitudes and intrinsic motivations towards risk awareness, personal safety and the safety of other road users;
• Providing the tools necessary for a well-informed choice of transport mode.

Here we can distinguish between formal and informal education. By formal traffic education, we mean the education provided in the form of a curriculum or project, usually by a school or training institute. Informal education concerns everyday activities of parents/caregivers to impart knowledge and teach children skills to participate in traffic safely.

Public communication also aims to bring about a change in knowledge, attitude or behaviour (see SWOV fact sheet Public communication ). The main difference with traffic education as intended here is the (physical or virtual) interaction with a teacher/instructor, in groups or individually. This interaction is absent, or at least less prominent, in public communication.

Traffic education is relevant to everyone at every life stage. It is relevant to all road users who, in every possible road user role, do not have (sufficient) knowledge, insight, skills and motivation to participate in traffic safely and who are capable of learning. Thus, it is not only meant for children, but also for novice (light) moped riders, novice drivers, older drivers, novice pedelec riders, novice mobility scooterists and so on. This is called lifelong traffic education.

Lifelong traffic education stands for the idea of providing traffic education for every age group and every mode of transport. The goal is to create the conditions for safe road user behaviour in terms of knowledge, ability and willingness. These elements lead to a formal definition of lifelong traffic education: a coherent package (in terms of both age-related development and road users’ mode of transport) of consecutive and continuous activities aimed at internalising change or continuing the desired safe road user behaviour, by creating the necessary conditions for the desired behaviour (of knowledge, ability and willingness) ” [2] . There are six age-based target groups within lifelong traffic education:

• age 0 – 4 (early and preschool education)
• age 4 – 12 (primary education)
• age 12 – 16 (secondary education)
• age 16 – ca. 25 (novice drivers)
• age ca. 25 – ca. 60 (driving licence owners)
• age 60 and over (older road users)

The aim of traffic education is to achieve safe road user behaviour and the conditions required for it. These conditions concern knowledge, ability and willingness. The elaboration in educational goals should of course be tailored to the target group and their main road user role.

Defining educational goals is of great importance for defining educational activities and evaluating their effectiveness. There are general goals, main goals and learning goals (see [3] ). General goals are very broadly defined to outline the domain of learning. The general goal of traffic education is to achieve safe road user behaviour for the main road user roles of the target group and the necessary conditions in terms of knowledge, ability and willingness. Table 1 provides an example

Table 1. Examples of general goal/domain for formal traffic education by target group. Source: [3] .

Main goals subsequently describe what an education activity is meant to achieve, for example, that a child is able to cross the road safely, that a driver recognises the risk of speeding, or that someone has mastered manoeuvring a mobility scooter. Finally, learning goals are very concrete elaborations of the main goals: what does safe crossing look like, what exactly must someone who recognises the risk of speeding do or say, what manoeuvres with a mobility scooter must be mastered in what circumstances. Learning goals should always be ‘SMART’ [3] :

• S pecific (addressing a concrete subject);
• M easurable (verifiable whether the goal was met);
• A cceptable (sufficiently motivating to want to learn about the particular subject);
• R ealistic (feasible); and
• Time-bound (with a deadline).

Following the GDE matrix (Goals of Driver Education), the goals of traffic education can be organised accordingly, making a distinction by level of traffic participation and aspects of the traffic task [4] [5] . The four levels of traffic participation, the rows of the GDE matrix, are:

• General level: personal motives and tendencies (e.g., degree of impulsivity, risk acceptance).
• Strategic level: considerations and decisions prior to travel (e.g., what route to take, what time to leave).
• Tactical level: interaction in traffic (e.g. whether to give right of way, whether to indicate direction).
• Operational level: vehicle control/operation (for example, shifting gears in a car and getting on and off a bicycle).

The three aspects of the traffic task, the columns of the GDE matrix, are:

• Knowledge and skills: what you need to know and be able to do in order to participate in traffic safely.
• Risk-increasing factors: the factors that increase crash risk, why this is so and how to avoid such risks.
•  Self-assessment: the extent to which you are able to participate in traffic safely and how to adjust your behavioural choices accordingly (calibration).

The role of the school

School is a logical place to provide traffic education because it offers the opportunity to provide traffic education to all children and to ensure that all children are imparted with the same knowledge, and taught the same skills, attitudes, norms and values, regardless of parents' considerations and (socioeconomic) opportunities [1] .

In the Netherlands, traffic is a compulsory part of the primary school curriculum. Together with geography, history, biology, citizenship and political studies, they are part of the subject World orientation/self-orientation . How often and how much time should be spent on the subject of traffic is not fixed. This is left to the discretion of schools [6] .

In secondary education , traffic is not a compulsory subject, but (a small) part of two of the 58 educational core goals for lower secondary education [7] :

• In the Human and Nature domain, core goal 35 is: "pupils learn about health and learn to take care of themselves, others and their environment, and how to positively influence their own and others’ safety in various living conditions (residing, learning, working, going out, traffic)."
• In the Human and Society domain, core goal 45 is: "Pupils learn - by experience and in their own environment - to recognise the effects of choices in the areas of work and health, living and recreation, consuming and budgeting, traffic and environment."

Traffic/traffic participation is not included in the so-called attainment targets for upper secondary education.

There are several teaching programmes available for primary and lower secondary education. The Toolkit LifelongTraffic education [8] offers a compact overview of Dutch programmes. Through various filters teachers may search specifically by age group, school type, subject etcetera. The programmes are developed and offered by various agencies, including ANWB, TeamAlert, VeiligheidNL and VVN.

The role of parents/caregivers

Parents also have a role in imparting knowledge and teaching their children road safety skills. This usually does not happen in the form of a programme or project as done at school, but in a more informal way, in everyday life. For example, parents can point out possible hazards to their children during the route from home to school or while driving draw their attention to certain situations or behaviour [9] . Parents/caregivers can also act as models for their children by leading by example. Informal education begins with children who do not yet go to school independently. But also, when children do go to school independently, parents can still have a positive influence on the risk behaviour of their children. Good communication is especially important with somewhat older children (adolescents) [10] .

The role of parents/caregivers in 'accompanied driving for novice drivers (in the Netherlands called 2todrive) is also a form of informal traffic education. A parent or other person travels with the novice driver for a certain period of time, so that the novice driver gains driving experience in a relatively protected environment. For more information, see SWOV fact sheet Driver training and driving tests .

Traffic education for (young) adults takes place largely in the form of theoretical and practical driver training for the various means of transport ((light) moped, car, motorcycle – see SWOV fact sheet Driver training and driving tests ). Commercial transport requires a specific driving license (C or D) and specific driver training and refresher training, such as the taxi driver training and Code 95 for truck and bus drivers.

There are also several courses (practical and online) for specific target groups. They mainly concern training and information targeting young adults on the one hand and seniors on the other. These types of activities are always voluntary, with the exception of the educational measures for offenders (see the question What is the effect of the educational measures EMG and (L)EMA? ).

Team Alert targets secondary school pupils and young adults and has also developed several educational projects. These are offered in schools and have themes such as cyclist traffic risks [11] , drink driving [12] and hazard perception [13] .

The Dutch road safety organisation VVN offers various (refresher) courses for seniors [14] , ], for example to promote road safety knowledge, courses for motorists, for (pedelec) cyclists and for mobility scooter riders (see the question What is the effect of refresher courses for seniors? ). The Doortrappen (keep pedalling)  programme of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management also targets seniors, with the aim of enabling them to cycle as long and as safely as possible (see the question What is What is the effect of 'Doortrappen'? ). The Fietsersbond (Dutch Cyclists’ Union) has its own cycling school which offers courses to children and seniors, and also to new Dutch citizens such as migrants, asylum seekers and expats [15] .

Good, i.e. effective, education requires logical cohesion between the road safety problem, current and intended behaviour and the didactic method. Fishers and colleagues [16] distinguish 10 steps or topics that are relevant in assessing the quality of a traffic education programme:

•     Problem behaviour: is the issue relevant?
•     Target group: is the target group unambiguously defined?
•     Learning goals: are the learning goals sufficiently concrete?
•     Working methods: are the working methods suited to the target group and the learning goals?
•     Design: is the content correct and the design appropriate?
•     Intermediate progress: is intermediate learning progress measured?
•     Manual: is there a manual and is it clear?
•     Implementation: are the practical aspects of implementation well described?
•     Process evaluation: is an inventory of users' experiences provided?
•     Effect measurement: have the effects of the programme been measured (appropriately)?

These steps largely correspond to the handbook of the European project LEARN! for developing and implementing traffic education programmes [17] :

Furthermore, it is important that a programme has clear, concrete main goals and learning goals, that the lesson content matches these one-to-one, and that the didactic methods fit the way children of a certain age learn [3] - see the question What are goals of traffic education? and What didactic principles and working methods are there? . Twisk [18] for example concludes that there is a need for programmes that allow young people to practice in complex traffic situations, but in which additional hazards are reduced as much as possible. In the practice of the school system, however, this is not easy to achieve. Possibly, simulated conditions, for example using simulators or virtual reality could offer a more practical alternative (see the question What didactic principles and teaching formats are there? ).

Didactic principles

The following general didactic principles also apply to traffic education [3] :

• The motivation principle: learning is faster and more thoroughly when pupils are intrinsically motivated to learn.
• The integration principle: the material taught must be consistent with the pupil’s existing knowledge. What has been learned must also be applicable in other situations (transfer).
• The visualisation principle: lessons should make maximum use of sensory perception.
• The activation principle: it is important to have pupils actively participate in lessons.
• The repetition principle: repeating the subject matter ensures consolidation, repetition in different contexts is beneficial, as is spaced repetition.
• The differentiation principle: it is important to pay attention to the differences between pupils in interest, learning pace and intellectual base.

Teaching formats

Teaching formats are ways of delivering subject matter to pupils. So, it is not about what is taught, but about how it is taught. Which format is best, depends on what and who you want to teach or train. In traffic education, there is a distinction between, for example [3] theoretical and practical teaching formats, and between group training and individual training.

Theory versus practice Knowledge about traffic rules can, in principle, be transferred in class. For the actual application of these rules and for learning safe behavioural strategies, practising in real traffic is indispensable for young children, at least in the first years of primary education. They cannot yet translate theoretical knowledge about rules or desired behaviour into actual behaviour in real traffic. As children get older, this becomes easier. Practising remains important, however, but it can increasingly be done in a simulated traffic situation, for example in the schoolyard, or with scale models or virtual reality.

Group training versus individual training In group education, the subject matter is offered to a group of learners at the same time. This is the case, for example, in schools and adult courses. The size of the group varies greatly. The advantage of group education, besides efficiency, is that the students can learn from each other, for example in discussions or when doing assignments together. Individual education involves a one-to-one relationship between student and teacher. This is usually done for practising very specific skills where mistakes during the learning process can have serious consequences. In such cases it is crucial that the teacher can intervene in time. The best-known example of individual traffic education is practical driver training.

Use of teaching material and (new) media

Traditionally, traffic education uses illustrations with photos and videos, sometimes scale models or traffic situations recreated in the schoolyard. New technologies make it possible to adopt a more interactive and realistic approach on an individual level, for example using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) techniques. Several studies have shown that children behave more safely after training with VR or AR, or at least when this is also measured with AR or VR [19] [20] [21] . To what extent VR and AR methods also have behavioural effects in real traffic has not/barely been studied [22] . The same is more or less true for serious gaming on a tablet or via VR/AR [23] [24] [25] .

Especially for (young) adults, there are also e-learning or online courses (distance learning via Internet or applications) in the field of road safety. Effects of such courses have rarely been studied, but evaluation of an online hazard perception training for novice drivers shows that positive effects are possible [26] .

Not much, and certainly not much methodologically sound, research has been done on the effects of traffic education. So, we do not know the effect of most traffic education programmes. The research that has been done concerns, for the most part, primary and secondary school programmes. This allows us to conclude that some traffic education projects can lead to (small) changes in behaviour and increased knowledge. In a few cases, however, traffic education can also lead to an undesired effect. For most traffic education programmes, the effect on crash involvement is unknown. Two types of traffic education for which a positive effect on crash risk was found are a general resilience training (see the question What is the effect of general resilience training? ) and hazard perception training (see the question How useful is hazard perception as part of driver training and driving tests? In the SWOV fact sheet Driver training and driving tests ).

Many educational programmes are not evaluated or are only evaluated at the process level. Studies that do look at effects are often too small in scale to draw conclusions. Also, many of the evaluation studies are methodologically inadequate. An older but large-scale meta-analysis [27] reviewed 674 evaluation studies, of which only 15 were found to meet methodological requirements. Often a proper control group was missing and allocation to the experimental group or the control group was not blind and random. However, proper evaluation of (traffic) education programmes is very important as it forms the (empirical) basis for further improvement (see the question How can traffic education be further improved? ). In addition, proper evaluation is important since traffic education programmes differ from one another enormously. If a programme works for a specific target group, specific learning goals and a certain teaching method, this does not automatically imply that it will work equally well for another target group, other learning goals and another teaching method.

The effect of traffic education is almost never measured in terms of crashes or crash risk. This is also virtually impossible because crashes are ultimately very rare events. Effects of traffic education are generally measured in terms of behaviour, sometimes observed behaviour, often self-reported behaviour. In addition, knowledge and attitudes are also considered. It is not known to what extent these effect measurements are good predictors of crash risk.

The aforementioned meta-analysis [27] concluded that some programmes teaching children how to cross the road safely may improve behaviour. They may also improve knowledge, but all in all the authors concluded that (pg. 4): " There is no reliable evidence supporting the effectiveness of pedestrian education for preventing injuries in children and inconsistent evidence that it might improve their behaviour, attitudes, and knowledge ."

The results of a later Dutch study reviewing a total of eleven different education programmes for primary and secondary schools [28] [29] , confirm this general conclusion. They showed that some reviewed projects had, at most, a small effect on self-reported behaviour, but could not determine whether this was associated with actually safer behaviour or crashes.

However, traffic education is also not a matter of ‘doesn't help, doesn't hurt’; projects that are not properly designed may also have an adverse effect [30] [31] .

The lack of unequivocal evidence for the effectiveness of traffic education does not mean that it should be abolished. Even if traffic education apparently does not immediately lead or hardly leads to safer behaviour, everyone will at least need to know the most important traffic rules and have some basic skills in order to participate in traffic safely.

Little (proper) research has been done on the effects of primary school traffic education. The research that has been done concludes that some traffic education projects can lead to (small) changes in behaviour and increased knowledge. The effect on crash involvement is unknown. For more information, see the question What is the road safety effect of traffic education? .

The road safety effect of the primary school traffic test, organised by the Dutch road safety organisation VVN, is unknown.

The VVN traffic test is the conclusion of a continuous road safety curriculum in primary education [32] and tests the learning goals defined for group 7 and 8. It consists of a theory test and a practical cycling test for pupils in group 7 or 8 of primary school. The theory test consists of 25 multiple-choice questions about situations in their roles as pedestrians, cyclists and passengers. For the practical test, pupils cycle a pre-set route and volunteers assess whether the pupils are demonstrating safe conduct using a checklist. For more information, see examen.vvn.nl.

The road safety effect of the aforementioned road safety curriculum with the concluding traffic test has not been studied. However, the Dutch educational assessment organisation Cito does analyse the validity of the theory questions every year and an external agency investigates (bi)annually) what pupils think about the VVN traffic test and the practice tools and how they could be improved [8] .

There is no information on the effectiveness of mobility scooter courses and training.

There are various courses for mobility scooter users, including those provided by mobility scooter suppliers, occupational therapists and safety organisations (especially VVN). For more information, see SWOV fact sheet Mobility scooters, enclosed disability vehicles and microcars . However, to our knowledge, the effectiveness of the courses has never been assessed.

In the Netherlands, there are several road safety refresher courses for seniors; often organised by VVN, sometimes in cooperation with provinces or municipalities. Other parties also offer refresher courses, such as the ANWB and the Fietsersbond, as well as commercial parties, such as driving schools. As far as we know, the road safety effect of Dutch refresher courses has not been studied. International research shows that training that is well tailored to the individual driver can have a positive effect on the knowledge and driving behaviour of older drivers [33] .

In various parts of the Netherlands, in-person refresher courses targeting drivers, cyclists and mobility scooter users are organised ( vvn.nl/opfriscursussen ). The courses usually consist of a theory section and a practical section, sometimes in one half-day session, sometimes in two half-day sessions. There are also online options such as the refresher quiz that covers all kinds of traffic rules and traffic situations with immediate feedback ( opfriscursus.vvn.nl/v/start ).

Refresher courses for older drivers often include an actual drive in the older driver’s own car accompanied by a certified instructor. The car refresher course is similar to the earlier BROEM course (Breed Overleg Ouderen en Mobiliteit), previously organised jointly by VVN, ANWB and BOVAG. This course was assessed at the time, although not in terms of behaviour or crashes, but in terms of participants’ self-reported experiences and a knowledge test [34] . This showed that participating seniors were very enthusiastic about the course. They indicated that the course had a positive effect on their theoretical knowledge and self-confidence. They also indicated that after the course they were more aware of their strengths and weaknesses in traffic. However, on an objective knowledge test, participants scored no better after the course than before, nor better than non-participants.

A systematic international literature review found 33 methodologically sound evaluations of training programmes for older (55+) drivers [33] . The researchers conclude that training programmes that are well tailored to the individual driver can improve both knowledge and driving behaviour.

The Dutch programme ‘Doortrappen’ (‘keep pedalling’) aims to keep seniors cycling as safely and as long as possible. The programme was launched in 2018 with a variety of local activities. The actual effect on road safety has not been studied; however, participants’ experiences have been examined.

‘Doortrappen’ was initiated by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. The programme is coordinated nationally but implemented at the municipal level. According to the Doortrappen website, over 220 municipalities are now actively engaged in the programme. With all kinds of activities and tips for safe cycling, ‘Doortrappen’ aims to make cycling safer for senior citizens. Keeping seniors socially involved is also an important goal of the programme.

The Mulier Institute has assessed the programme [35] . Interviews with participants (individually and in focus groups) showed that they were generally positive about their participation. Where road safety was concerned, participants were particularly enthusiastic about the practical tips they received, for example on adjustments to their bicycles and the choice of cycling times and routes. For a majority of them, this made them feel safer in traffic. It is not known whether this feeling of increased safety is actually valid, i.e. whether participation in ‘Doortrappen’ leads to safer cycling behaviour and fewer unsafe situations for senior road users. A safety-relevant recommendation that emerged from the evaluation was to pay more attention to dealing with specific risk factors for elderly cyclists, such as cycling at low speed, colliding with an obstacle, going off the road and turning left.

Education programmes in which young people have encounters with people who have been involved in a road crash may result in small positive effects on attitudes and knowledge, which, however, do not always take root.

In the Netherlands, the organisation Traffic Informers ( www.trafficinformers.nl ) brings together road casualties suffering from permanent brain injury and secondary school pupils. In class, road casualties first talk about their lives before the crash, and next about the crash and how it changed their lives. An evaluation study in 2006/2007 [36] showed that four weeks after the talk, these encounters had a positive effect on pupils’ attitudes about road safety and on estimating the risk of being involved in a crash themselves. In contrast, some participants were more positive about traffic offences after the lesson. Thus, both positive and negative effects were found in this study, but both effects were very small.

More recently, similar initiatives to have young people meet road casualties have been evaluated in Belgium [37] , Denmark [38] and Germany [39] . They generally found no or only small positive effects on attitudes, knowledge or self-reported behaviour. In the Belgian study, an effect was still found after two months; in the German study, the effects had disappeared after five months.

Short courses aimed at teaching skills such as getting out of a skid do not work or may even have a negative effect on road safety if they cause drivers to rely too much on their perceived skills. Courses that mainly focus on skidding prevention do not seem to have a negative effect, but drivers who have taken such a course do seem less inclined to avoid slipperiness [40] [41] ; see also SWOV fact sheet Driver training and driving tests ).

Referral to LEMA (Light Educational Measure Alcohol and traffic) or the EMA (Educational Measure Alcohol and traffic) does not lead to a lower risk of recidivism for drink-driving [42] . The EMG (Educational Measure Behaviour), imposed on speeding offenders, has also been found to be ineffective in preventing new speeding and other EMG-related offences [43] .

LEMA and EMA are Dutch administrative measures that can be imposed on people caught for drink-driving. They are short courses that the participants have to pay for themselves addressing the risks of alcohol consumption in traffic and the need to separate alcohol consumption and traffic participation.

EMG (educational measure behaviour) is a similar administrative measure, but it is imposed on drivers who exhibit very dangerous driving behaviour, such as excessive speeding. Since April 2023, there has been a light EMG (LEMG) especially for young drivers who have committed a major speeding offence for the first time. In April 2023, an Educational Measure Drugs (EMD) was also introduced. The effects of these new educational measures are not yet known.

For more information, see SWOV fact sheets Driving under the influence of alcohol en Risky road user behaviour, aggression and repeat offenders .

Education programmes that are designed to increase young people's resilience to risk and (perceived) social pressure in a broad sense and are not or barely about road user behaviour can still have an effect on road safety.

This was found, for example, in a longitudinal Australian study of young drivers. The crash risk of young people who had attended a one-day workshop and various follow-up activities aimed at reducing risky behaviour and increasing resilience in a broad sense was compared with the crash risk of young people who had attended a one-day course specifically focusing on traffic risks. In the former group, the crash rate decreased by 44%, while there was no effect on crash rate in the latter group [44] . After 13 years, the participants of the general resilience training were still found to have a lower crash risk [45] .

A Dutch example of an education programme that only indirectly deals with traffic, but also aims to have an effect on road user behaviour, is 'Fight your inner monkey' by Veiligheid.nl [46] . This programme aims to make 15- to 17-year-olds aware of peer pressure and how this can lead to unsafe situations. An evaluation in 2013 (mentioned in the 'Toolkit Verkeerseducatie' [8] ) showed that, compared to pupils in a control school, the project participants had more knowledge about peer pressure and therefore were able to better recognise situations in which peer pressure occurs.

Proper traffic education requires:

• Direct alignment with the target group's road user roles and how they experience those roles.
• A substantiated understanding of the target group’s road user roles, risk factors and situations.
• Subsequent very concrete (SMART) learning goals in terms of skills, behavioural strategies, knowledge and motives.
• Didactic work formats that fit the target group’s learning goals and cognitive abilities.
• Enthusiastic, motivated and well-informed teachers, supported by parents where necessary (during practical training).

See [3] [16] and the questions What are the characteristics of a good traffic education programme? en What are the goals of traffic education? .

The developed checklist 'quality of traffic education interventions' [16] is a practical tool for users to get an indication of the quality of a particular programme or course. It is also a tool for developers to check whether their product meets the main qualitative criteria. Assessment with this checklist shows the quality of the programmes to have increased in recent years: from a total of 3.6 in 2012 to 4.7 in 2022 at a maximum score of 5 [16] . Most educational programmes appear to meet the conditions formulated by Vissers and colleagues about knowledge of the problem behaviour, a clearly formulated target group, well formulated learning goals and teaching methods geared to the problem behaviour, target group and learning goals (see the question What are the characteristics of a good traffic education programme? ). The greatest gains can still be made in the implementation of effect measurement [16] .

Effect measurements should ideally be done in terms of crash involvement. But that is virtually impossible since crashes are fortunately rare events. To demonstrate an effect statistically, large numbers are needed and thus a very long time period in which all kinds of other things happen, besides traffic education, that may have affected crash involvement. Consequently, no statement can be made about the effect of traffic education.

Final assessment therefore preferably takes place in terms of observed road safety behaviour. After all, road safety behaviour is ultimately what traffic education aims to influence and, thus, observed behaviour is a much more reliable indication than self-reported behaviour. Interim assessments can also look at underlying aspects such as skills, knowledge and motives, based on the learning goals and as long as there is a correlation with the eventual desired/intended behaviour.

Below you will find the list of references that are used in this fact sheet; all sources can be consulted or retrieved. Via Publications you can find more literature on the subject of road safety.

[1]. ETSC (2020). Key principles for traffic safety and mobility education . European Transport Safety Council, Brussels.

[2]. Betuw, A.J.M. van & Vissers, J.A.M.M. (2002). Naar een succesvolle invoering van Permanente Verkeerseducatie: uitgangspunten voor beleid . Gezamenlijke Regionale en Provinciale Organen voor de Verkeersveiligheid.

[3]. Doumen, M.J.A. & Schagen, I.N.L.G. van (2022). Didactische uitgangspunten voor verkeerseducatie. Inventarisatie van relevante leertheorieën en didactische principes [Didactics of traffic education. Inventory of relevant learning theories and didactic principles]. R-2022-17. [Summary in English]. SWOV, Den Haag.

[4]. Hatakka, M., Keskinen, E., Gregersen, N.P., Glad, A., et al. (2002). From control of the vehicle to personal self-control; broadening the perspectives to driver education . In: Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, vol. 5, nr. 3, p. 201-215.

[5]. Vissers, J.A.M.M., Nägele, R.C., Kooistra, A.B., Betuw, A.J.M. van, et al. (2005). Leerdoelendocument Permanente Verkeerseducatie . In opdracht van Directoraat-Generaal Rijkswaterstaat, Adviesdienst Verkeer en Vervoer AVV. Traffic Test, Veenendaal.

[6]. Rijksoverheid (2023). Welke vakken krijgt mijn kind op de basisschool? Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap. Accessed on 24-08-2023 at https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/basisonderwijs/vraag-en-antwoord/welke-vakken-krijgt-een-kind-op-de-basisschool .

[7]. SLO (2016). Karakteristieken en kerndoelen - Onderbouw voortgezet onderwijs . Stichting Leerplanontwikkeling SLO, Enschede.

[8]. CROW (2023). Toolkit Verkeerseducatie. Kennisplatform CROW. Accessed on 24-08-2023 at https://www.crow.nl/kennis/tools-mobiliteit-en-gedrag/toolkit-verkeerseducatie .

[9]. Hoekstra, A.T.G. & Twisk, D.A.M. (2010). De rol van ouders in het informele leerproces van kinderen van 4 tot 12 jaar. Een eerste verkenning [The role of parents in the informal learning process of children in the age group 4 to 12 years-old. A first investigation] . R-2010-19 [Summary in English]. SWOV, Leidschendam.

[10]. Hamann, C.J. & Spears, S. (2019). Parent-adolescent bicycling safety communication and bicycling behavior . In: Accident Analysis & Prevention, vol. 131, p. 350-356.

[11]. TeamAlert (2023). Kruispunt . Accessed on 24-08-2023 at https://teamalert.nl/zakelijk/thema-s/kwetsbare-verkeersdeelnemers/kruispunt/ .

[12]. TeamAlert (2023). StreetTalk - Alcohol & Drugs . Accessed on 24-08-2023 at https://teamalert.nl/zakelijk/thema-s/rijden-onder-invloed/streettalk-alcohol-drugs/ .

[13]. TeamAlert (2023). Blikveld - Op straat . Accessed on 24-08-2023 at https://teamalert.nl/zakelijk/thema-s/onervaren-verkeersdeelnemers/blikveld-op-straat .

[14]. VVN (2023). Blijf veilig mobiel. Veilig Verkeer Nederland. Accessed on 25-08-2023 at https://vvn.nl/50-plussers .

[15]. Fietsersbond (2023). Fietsersbond Fietsschool . Fietsersbond, Utrecht. Accessed on 23-08-2023 at https://www.fietsersbond.nl/onderweg/fietsschool/ .

[16]. Vissers, J., Slinger, W., Hukker, N. & Kluitman, A. (2023). De checklist verkeerseducatie: Tien jaar kwaliteit meten van verkeerseducatieve interventies . In: Tijdschrift Vervoerswetenschap, vol. 59, nr. 2, p. 23-42.

[17]. Mütze, F. (ed.) (2021). The LEARN! Manual for developing and evaluating traffic safety and mobility education activities . European Transport Safety Council ETSC, Brussels.

[18]. Twisk, D.A.M., Vlakveld, W.P., Commandeur, J.J.F., Shope, J.T., et al. (2014). Five road safety education programmes for young adolescent pedestrians and cyclists: A multi-programme evaluation in a field setting . In: Accident Analysis & Prevention, vol. 66, p. 55-61.

[19]. Lehtonen, E., Airaksinen, J., Kanerva, K., Rissanen, A., et al. (2017). Game-based situation awareness training for child and adult cyclists . In: Royal Society Open Science, vol. 4, nr. 3.

[20]. Wijlhuizen, G.J. & Kint, S. van der (2018). Verkeersvaardigheidstraining met virtual reality voor basisschoolleerlingen. Evaluatie van het WegWijs VR-experiment . R-2018-12. SWOV, Den Haag.

[21]. Skjermo, J., Roche-Cerasi, I., Moe, D. & Opland, R. (2022). Evaluation of road safety education program with virtual reality eye tracking . In: SN Computer Science, vol. 2022, nr. 3, Article nr. 149.

[22]. Vankov, D. & Jankovszky, D. (2021). Effects of using headset-delivered virtual reality in road safety research: A systematic review of empirical studies . In: Virtual Rality & Intelligent Hardware, vol. 3, nr. 5, p. 351-368.

[23]. Szczurowski, K. & Smith, M. (2018). “ Woodlands” - a virtual reality serious game supporting learning of practical road safety skills . Paper presented at IEEE Games, Entertainment, Media Conference (GEM), Galway, Ireland. August 15-17, 2018.

[24]. Tan, Q.P., Huang, L., Xu, D., Cen, Y., et al. (2022). Serious game for VR road crossing in special needs education . In: Electronics, vol. 11, nr. 16, p. 2568.

[25]. Gounaridou, A., Siamtanidou, E. & Dimoulas, C. (2021). A serious game for mediated education on traffic behavior and safety awareness . In: Education Sciences, vol. 11, nr. 3, p. 127.

[26]. Horswill, M.S., Hill, A., Buckley, L., Kieseker, G., et al. (2022). An online hazard perception training course reduces heavy braking, speeding, and over-revving rates during everyday driving . In: Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, vol. 87, p. 54-68.

[27]. Duperrex, O., Bunn, F. & Roberts, I. (2002). Safety education of pedestrians for injury prevention: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials . In: British Medical Journal, vol. 324, nr. 7346, p. 1129-1131.

[28]. Twisk, D.A.M., Vlakveld, W.P. & Commandeur, J.J.F. (2007). Wanneer is verkeerseducatie effectief? Systematische evaluatie van educatieprojecten [When is education effective? Systematic evaluation of education projects]. . R-2006-28 [Summary in English]. SWOV, Leidschendam.

[29]. Twisk, D.A.M. (2014). Protecting pre-license teens from road risk: Identifying risk-contributing factors and quantifying effects of intervention strategies . Dissertation Maastricht University, Maastricht.

[30]. Gregersen, N.P. & Nolén, S. (1994). Children's road safety and the strategy of voluntary traffic safety clubs . In: Accident Analysis & Prevention, vol. 26, nr. 4, p. 463-470.

[31]. Feenstra, H., Ruiter, R.A. & Kok, G. (2012). Go fast! Reaction time differences between adults and adolescents in evaluating risky traffic situations . In: Journal of Health Psychology, vol. 17, nr. 3, p. 343-349.

[32]. VVN (2016).  Doorlopende leerlijn - Verkeerseducatie basisonderwijs . Veilig Verkeer Nederland.

[33]. Sangrar, R., Mun, J., Cammarata, M., Griffith, L.E., et al. (2019). Older driver training programs: A systematic review of evidence aimed at improving behind-the-wheel performance . In: Journal of Safety Research, vol. 71, p. 295-313.

[34]. Davidse, R.J. & Hoekstra, A.T.G. (2010). Evaluatie van de BROEM-cursus nieuwe stijl. Een vragenlijststudie onder oudere automobilisten [Evaluation of the new style BROEM course. A survey among older drivers] . R-2010-6 [Summary in English]. SWOV, Leidschendam.

[35]. Balk, L., Dellas, V., Folkersma Kok, F., Suijlekom, A. van, et al. (2022). Doortrappen - Eindrapportage monitoring en evaluatie . Mulier Instituut, Utrecht.

[36]. Feenstra, H., Ruiter, R.A.C. & Kok, G. (2014). Evaluating traffic informers: Testing the behavioral and social-cognitive effects of an adolescent bicycle safety education program . In: Accident Analysis & Prevention, vol. 73, p. 288-295.

[37]. Cuenen, A., Brijs, K., Brijs, T., Vlierden, K. van, et al. (2016). Effect evaluation of a road safety education program based on victim testimonials in high schools in Belgium . In: Accident Analysis & Prevention, vol. 94, p. 18-27.

[38]. Bojesen, A.B. & Rayce, S.B. (2020). Effectiveness of a school-based road safety educational program for lower secondary school students in Denmark: A cluster-randomized controlled trial . In: Accident Analysis & Prevention, vol. 147, p. 105773.

[39]. Koehler, M., Brockamp, T., Bamberg, S. & Gehlert, T. (2022). Change of risk behaviour in young people - the effectiveness of the trauma prevention programme P.A.R.T.Y. considering the effect of fear appeals and cognitive processes . In: BMC Public Health, vol. 22, nr. 1, p. 595.

[40]. Beanland, V., Goode, N., Salmon, P.M. & Lenné, M.G. (2013). Is there a case for driver training? A review of the efficacy of pre- and post-licence driver training . In: Safety Science, vol. 51, nr. 1, p. 127-137.

[41]. Farmer, C.M. & Wells, J.K. (2015). Crash and citation records of young drivers with skid avoidance training . Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Arlington.

[42]. Blom, M., Boschman, S.E. & Weijters, G. (2022). Differentiële effectiviteit maatregelen alcohol en verkeer . Cahier 2022-7. Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en documentatie Centrum WODC, Den Haag.

[43]. Blom, M., Blokdijk, D. & Weijters, G. (2019). Recidive na maatregelen rijvaardigheid en geschiktheid . Cahier 2019-20. Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Documentatiecentrum WODC, Den Haag.

[44]. Senserrick, T., Ivers, R., Boufous, S., Chen, H.-Y., et al. (2009). Young driver education programs that build resilience have potential to reduce road crashes . In: Pediatrics, vol. 124, nr. 5, p. 1287-1292.

[45]. Senserrick, T., Möller, H., Rogers, K., Cullen, P., et al. (2021). Youth resilience education and 13-year motor vehicle crash risk . In: Pediatrics, vol. 148, nr. 6.

[46]. VeiligheidNL (2023). Fight Your Inner Monkey: stoppen met na-aapgedrag in het verkeer. VeiligheidNL Kenniscentrum letselpreventie. Accessed on 02-10-2023 at https://www.veiligheid.nl/kennisaanbod/lespakket/fight-your-inner-monkey-stoppen-met-na-aapgedrag-het-verkeer .

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SWOV (2024). Traffic education . SWOV fact sheet, March 2024. SWOV, The Hague.

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• School Education /

Essay on Traffic Rules in 500+ Words in English for School Students

• Updated on  
• Apr 18, 2024

Essay on Traffic Rules: Traffic rules are essential for the management of both automobiles and pedestrians. Significant regulations have been put in place by traffic regulation authorities to ensure the safety of both vehicles and pedestrians. These traffic rules not only prevent injuries but also enhance the efficiency of road delivery systems. An essay on traffic rules will delve into significant guidelines governing the navigation of the road and its safety measures. Furthermore, it will also explain the importance of traffic rules, their implementation, and their impact on our daily lives. 

Table of Contents

• 1 Significance of Traffic Laws
• 2 Key Traffic Rules That Everyone Should Know
• 3 Conclusion

Also Read: Essay on Road Safety: Sample Essay In 100,300 Words

Significance of Traffic Laws

Traffic laws are essential for safety on the roads. They direct traffic and pedestrians, reducing the risk of accidents and violence. Following the rules reduces one’s chances of injury and death. Again, these rules establish structure and predictability along the way, creating a safer environment for everyone. 

If traffic rules and regulations are not followed, accidents will happen frequently and cause danger to the riders as well as the pedestrians. Therefore, regulations must be strictly enforced to maintain a safe and efficient transport system.

Key Traffic Rules That Everyone Should Know

Knowledge of traffic laws is essential for safe travel. Learning about these laws begins with recognising our behaviour and important traffic rules. Let’s examine these rules to keep everyone safe on the road.

• Driving on the Left Side:

The Motor Vehicles Act of 1988 in India requires vehicles to drive on the left side of the road. The law is intended to keep traffic predictable and orderly and reduce the risk of head-on collisions. Following these rules allows the driver to set the speed of oncoming traffic and respond to any accident accordingly.

• Laws of Traffic:

Traffic laws are important for the safety and well-ordered movement of vehicles and pedestrians on the roads. These traffic laws are put in place by the authorities and play a vital role in preventing accidents. We should understand these laws and obey the rules they frame. By practicing this, we not only protect ourselves but also show respect for the welfare of others. 

• Wearing Seat Belt and Helmet:

Seat belts and helmets are mandatory in most countries, including India. These road safety devices reduce the risk of injury and death with each collision. Seat belts protect the driver and seat passengers, and helmets protect the heads of motorcycles and bicycles The use of these safety systems ensures individual safety and fosters a culture of responsible driving through encouragement.

• Respect No-Horn Zones:

In some areas, such as hospitals, schools, and residential areas, extra care should be taken with the use of horns. Drivers should respect these no-horn zones and avoid whistling unnecessarily while maintaining a peaceful atmosphere.

• Avoid Using Mobile Phones While Driving:

The main distraction while driving is the use of mobile phones, which increases the risk of accidents. A driver can use his cell phone or hands-free devices to make or receive calls, send text messages, or engage in any activity to distract himself from the road. As a sign of responsibility, drivers should pull over safely before using mobile phones.

• Respecting the Right Way: 

When it comes to traffic, the right of way means priority for cars or pedestrians, and they can go first. Drivers and pedestrians must also recognise and respect the rights provided by roads with smooth and orderly traffic flow.

Traffic laws are not just a set of restrictions but systems to protect the safety and well-being of all road users. By understanding laws and regulations and further utilizing real-time navigation, drivers and pedestrians can contribute to a safer and more efficient transportation system.

As individuals, we are solely responsible for obeying the law. This is followed by an example of responsible and thoughtful behavior on the roads.

Also Reads: Essay on Road Accident in 500 Words

Ans: The importance of traffic regulations can be summarised as follows: a. Traffic rules are designed to prevent injuries and protect the lives of drivers, pedestrians, and different street users. b. They frame strict pointers for secure driving behaviors, including proper speed, right-of-manner, and signaling, which further assist in lowering the probability of collisions. c. Proper use of the traffic guidelines enables the green use of the infrastructure of the street. d. Efficient traffic control allows for the intake of fuels and lowers emissions from vehicles.

Ans: Here are 5 sentences on traffic rules: – Traffic policies are sets of legal guidelines and regulations that describe how vehicles need to behave on public roads. – The regulations are designed to ensure the protection and easy float of traffic. – Obeying the traffic rules and guidelines helps preserve the legal guidelines and orders on the road. – If one fails to observe the site traffic regulations, then they’re penalized with fines, suspension of licenses, and even crook prices in extreme instances.  – Following the traffic guidelines is our civic duty, which in addition advantages the entire network by keeping the road safe and efficient.

Ans: Traffic guidelines are the legal guidelines and rules that govern the behavior of drivers, pedestrians, and different customers on the roads. Further, they inform us about the way to force, where to park, and a way to interact with other human beings on the road.

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Effectiveness of road safety prevention in schools

Associated data.

The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found in the article/ Supplementary material .

The World Health Organization estimates that each year, 1.3 million people are killed and more than 50 million people worldwide are injured in road traffic accidents. According to a study conducted by the Allianz Center for Technology, more young people between the ages of 15 and 29 die in traffic accidents than as a result of illness, drugs, suicide, violence, or war events worldwide. That is about 400,000 per year, globally. Worldwide traffic accident prevention campaigns demonstrate the consequences of traffic accidents in an emotionalizing way in order to encourage drivers to adopt conscious safety behavior via adequate driving behavior. The consequences of traffic accidents are demonstrated by prevention campaigns often in an emotionalizing way to encourage drivers to adopt safety measurements through adequate driving behavior. Prior research suggests that the emotionalizing effect of the appeals must be accompanied by solution- as well as action-oriented and self-confidence-increasing measures, so that the instructive message is reinforced and does not lead to reactance. Thus, a strong need arose in the schools for a targeted training as the follow-up of emotional prevention campaigns. A suitable training for knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer into everyday life was developed by means of the design-based research method. To create the targeted follow-up, various methods from cognitive behavioral therapy and common traffic safety programs were adapted. This publication is dedicated to a first explorative research approach in a non-standardized form of a social training. It approaches the question of negative emotional states immediately after a Crash Kurs NRW stage event, which is a prevention program in Germany that targets upper middle school and high school courses and originates from North Rhine-Westphalia. Changes in social behavior and development of participants' own norms, values, and attitudes were observed and documented and are discussed and presented in this article. The result of the survey confirmed prior research and showed visible effects of reactance after the Crash Curs NRW campaign. It was found that a structured follow-up training is suitable to gain reactive behavior from the stage event. Knowledge deficits about the cause and outcome of accidents were successfully addressed in the follow-up. This may have influence the reactance behavior and could be a key factor for successful prevention campaigns. Further publications will observe the connection between knowledge and reactance in subsequent iterative passes of modified follow-ups for the Crash Course NRW Campaign.

Introduction

Mobility stands for economic growth and the participation of each individual in social life. It is particularly important for young, adolescent people in the phase of detachment from the parental home and networking with the peer group (Bastian, 2010 , p. 24).

However, there is evidence that the mobility also has negative consequences: in total, 400,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 29 die each year in road traffic accidents worldwide (Allianz, 2014 ).

Consequently, traffic accident prevention and safety work enjoy a high level of social attention.

Prevention strategies are divided into universal, population-based, and area-based vs. target group-specific measures, which are declared, for example, by their sociodemographic characteristics or by their risk status (Thapa-Görder and Voigt-Radloff, 2010 , p. 19). As a result of the causal relationship between vehicle and infrastructure-related factors and traffic management, the number of accidental deaths is much higher in low-income countries, for example (Faus et al., 2021a ). In addition, especially in emerging countries, parameters such as the dependence of funding on government sources, fragmentation of decision-making processes in multidisciplinary areas, legal frameworks for road safety, public awareness, local needs, and institutional capacity for road accident prevention work are major determinants of advancing influential safety work (Eusofe and Evdorides, 2017 ).

Young drivers in the adult life phase are included in the high-risk group. The reasons for this classification are the detachment from the parental home, the search for identity, formative and groundbreaking changes in social relationships, orientation to the social peer group, and finding one's own social status. Testing one's own limits is typical and immanent in the adolescent phase of development.

For most young adults, this critical development phase includes the acquisition of a driver's license and, associated with this, greater access to individual mobility (Raithel, 2011 , p. 9). Further causes for a high level of involvement in accidents lie in the additional criteria of “novice risk” and “youth risk” (Jugendlichkeitsrisiko, Landesverkehrswacht MV, www.verkehrswacht-mv.de , 18.06.2022). Novice drivers lack experience in dealing with motor vehicles and traffic situations. Risky behavior in dangerous situations is more likely to be accepted. As unsafe driving style develops, the car becomes a symbol of freedom (Bastian, 2010 , p. 47).

This risk acceptance influences the assessment of the dangerousness and leads via incentives (cost-benefit) toward dangerous behavior (Seifert, 2007 , p. 1), further in sum with the “beginner's risk” to an increased hazard potential in road traffic (Jugendlichkeitsrisiko, Landesverkehrswacht MV, www.verkehrswacht-mv.de , (18.06.2022).

Young people also use the traffic area as a sports and communication space and as a meeting place for group activities. Important social functions are controlled in the social reference group (“peer group”), where acceptance and recognition are also and especially found for risky behaviors. Consequently, age-typical dangerous behavior is to be seen as a main risk variable (Limbourg, 2013 ).

The purpose and type of traffic participation define different hazard potentials (Limbourg, 2013 ). Speeding violations, also combined with a lack of distance to the vehicle ahead, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, overtaking errors, red light violations and distractions, for example, by cell phones, lead the statistics for the causes of accidents among young drivers. Often, not wearing a seat belt is added as an injury-increasing criterion ( www.destatis.de ).

Therefore, road safety work must target this problem in a methodologically selective manner. These high-risk strategies are target group-oriented, but usually of higher cost-effectiveness than population-based strategies (Thapa-Görder and Voigt-Radloff, 2010 , p. 19). In addition to penalty-based incentive and punishment systems, the focus is on the educational procedures (Thapa-Görder and Voigt-Radloff, 2010 , p. 19). These are implemented and put into practice in educational institutions.

Theoretical framework

Prevention in the area of tension between practice and science.

Cooperations among the police, local authorities, traffic guards, associations, and other institutions make it possible to communicate traffic accident prevention in a sustainable manner.

The police identify current traffic accident phenomena and hot spots, initiate prevention projects and, if necessary, participate in them (Verkehrssicherheitsarbeit der Polizei, https://www.recht.nrw.de , 06.09.2022). Police is present every day in the context of education and upbringing with its prevention work at educational institutions; indeed, it moves continuously and acts pedagogically in the areas of tension that arise from the encounter of pedagogical activities and core police work (Kepura, 2021 , p. 278). Schools and the police encourage young people to become independent-minded, responsible personalities in the area of conflict between freedom and rules.

The school's educational mission should also convey the meaning of norms and reflect on them critically. Democracy-related educational goals such as autonomy, maturity, and the ability to participate and reflect are thus captured (Dewey, 2016 ).

Researching prevention work across systems (here: pedagogy and police) opens up greater perspectives of knowledge than the theoretical framework of only one scientific discipline, because the knowledge generated then does not remain entrenched in the inherent logic of the respective system (Steffen, 2012 , p. 40).

In addition, studies have shown that communication campaigns, related to road safety messages, can be significantly increased in the effectiveness when accompanied by traffic education activities (Faus et al., 2021b ).

Behavior change through fear appeals

Road safety campaigns aim to change the behavior of their participants. Toward that goal, some campaigns aim at positive behavioral change in favor of health regularly act with the conception: “Create fear!”.

The cognitive dissonance of the perhaps deadly, but fast car ride with fun factor, must be resolved in favor of future orientation for the individual.

Newly propagated behavior patterns are to be strengthened, and the old ones renounced (Bonfadelli and Friemel, 2010 , p. 56).

If the fear appeal is too strong, it can result in reactance (Dahlgren, 2021 , p. 153, Dillard and Shen, 2005 , p. 144). When people are exposed to content they have not asked for, they may see that as a threat to their received freedom. They may restore their freedom by becoming angry and counterarguing, or in some cases by choosing actions consistent with their prior attitudes since forced exposure can “subjectively decrease the attractiveness of the imposed alternative and increase the attractiveness of the denied option” (Dahlgren, 2021 , p. 153).

The recipient denies the threat but does not change his behavior as desired, or even behaves in the opposite direction. This is often referred to as the “ boomerang effect“ in social psychology (Rossmann and Hastall, 2019 , p. 435).

As early as the 1960's and 1970's, theories were developed that dealt with behavioral change through punishment or fear (Rogers, 1975 , p. 93–114). These ” fear appeal theories“ could not be empirically proven in their effectiveness (Ehlert, 2002 ).

According to the recent research, fear appeals are only effective if coping skills are promoted at the same time and action goals, action outcomes, and self-efficacy expectations are strengthened (Koehler et al., 2022 , p. 3).

In addition, there is the finding that the effect of fear appeals is influenced by the individual differences in self-esteem (Leventhal and Hirschmann, 1982 , p. 183–226).

The form and content of the formulated message are thus substantial, and the personal possibilities of the recipient determine how they are received. This determines the transport of content (Witte and Allen, 2020 , p. 591–615).

First, the confrontation with the risk takes place, where the recipient first evaluates the risk. Positive and risk-minimizing behaviors are also presented. If the risk is assessed as low, no further processing takes place, and the new behaviors are not considered further. If the risk is rated as high, two things can happen: If one's own self-efficacy is perceived as sufficient to counter the risk with the help of the presented new behaviors, then the new behaviors are adopted. If the risk is rated high, but one's own self-efficacy is rated too low, and the new behaviors are rated as not suitable, not feasible, or unrealistic, then the new behaviors would not adopted, but rather the risk would be denied.

The US-American Psychologist Martin Seligman described this state as that of “learned helplessness,” which provides a suitable breeding ground for the development of, for example, depression and anxiety and thus in turn reduces self-worth (Seligman and Petermann, 2016 ).

Hackenfort et al. ( 2015 , p. 215) therefore argue that a targeted follow-up is indispensable to implement traffic safety relevant behavior. This means that messages in themselves must be logical, comprehensible, and practicably applicable. Their meaning must be understood, and then, the new knowledge is readily applied.

This finding is supported by knowledge from health research studies on AIDS campaigns in the USA, which found that mass media campaigns as a prevention strategy can be successful in reducing AIDS under certain conditions and with careful planning and good execution, preferably with a focus on positive messages (Zatonski and Herbec, 2016 ).

In addition to these aforementioned criteria that influence readiness for behavior change, there is another important factor: recall of previously received safety messages at the right time in a traffic setting. A study of traffic safety behavior in the Dominican Republic focused on the human factor of remembering traffic safety campaigns with the result that only male professional drivers who had a driver's license and drove regularly were most likely to remember safety-related campaign messages (Faus et al., 2021b ).

Thus, when these criteria are considered, the opportunities for effective road safety management increase.

Potential stress reactions

The presented knowledge about the mode of action of fear appeals and the fact that these effects anchor themselves in the thoughts and emotional world of the addressee leads to the implied question of what consequences these triggered emotions have through the use of confronting media.

The risk of psychological overload through the presentation of the emotionally overstraining elements of the stage event and the psychological disturbance patterns that could be triggered by this seems to be given.

Overloads according to ICD 10 are in particular:

• F43.0 Acute stress reaction – without disease value, but with the risk of decompensation and an associated malaise.
• F43.2 Adjustment disorder–with disease value.
• F43.1 Post-traumatic stress disorder–with illness value ( www.icd-code.de/icd/code/F00-F99.html ).

This requires the preparation of the schools, in which students in risk of a post-traumatic stress disorder are detected and excluded from the stage event.

Finally, a well-prepared follow-up is required in which the contents are finalized by specific options for action in order to strengthen the learned messages and to prevent the scientifically known negative consequences of the so-called fear appeals.

Research questions

Causally, the findings so far in this paper lead to the following key research questions:

• Q1: Which didactic methods are suitable to extract and strengthen the safety messages of the stage event?
• Q2: Which didactic methods are suitable to influence dangerous behavior in an empathy-expanding way?

Q3: How must a follow-up module be designed in terms of content in order to be able to attach important road safety messages in the long term?

• Q4: Was reactive behavior generated by the Crash Course NRW stage event and could it be minimized through follow-up modules?

Materials and methods

Overview of the entire research.

The design-based research method allows a systematic approach to these complex problems (Plattner et al., 2016 ).

We look at the problem through the user's lens.

In six different phases, the logic of the successive course of projects is measured against the milestones in order to drop or pass process steps if necessary.

Through iteration, the sequence of process steps through loops to previous phases. In this process, openness to results and a culture of mistakes are implemented: Because every failure, if recognized early, is a gain for the progress of the innovation process (Gerling and Gerling, 2018 ).

Initial design

Based on the complexity of a traffic accident prevention campaign in all schools of an entire federal state for students between 16 and 24 years of age, it seemed obvious to use the research design of the design-based research method. This design promised sufficient systematic structures to be able to capture the wealth of needs and still focus on the necessary goals and promote their further development. In this study, we conducted research accompanying a Crash Course prevention program specifically addressing young drivers and passengers in their peer group.

The stage event took place 1 week before the follow-up.

In the stage event, the police presents the course of the rescue chain with actors and affected people as well as the events at the scene of the accident in an informative way.

With emotional biographical reports and vivid pictures, police and fire department officers, paramedics, emergency doctors, emergency chaplains, or even relatives of accident victims report on the causes and consequences.

Personal experiences such as the scene of an accident, first aid, or the news of a death are included.

Together with the use of confronting media, strong emotions are triggered in the participants.

As a state campaign by the police of North Rhine-Westphalia in cooperation with educational institutions, the Crash Course NRW prevention program specifically targets young drivers and passengers in their peer group, aiming to convey the following statements:

• Traffic accidents have a cause and do not just happen.
• Traffic accidents are avoidable.
• Deliberately disregarding traffic rules is a main source of traffic accidents.
• Important traffic rules are as follows: control your speed, buckle up, do not drink and drive, and do not distract the driver (or let other distract you as a driver).

The Crash Course NRW state campaign is designed as a program with three phases, in which schools and the police work together.

The Figure 1 shows the three different phases with possible interventions to support proportionality and avert danger.

Overview of the phases of action of the Crash Kurs NRW.

The aim of this exploratory study was to uncover how people construct their reality, how functional or dysfunctional this constructed reality is, and how it needs to be restructured in order to achieve traffic safety-relevant behavior. Through an explorative examination of the risks of road traffic in conjunction with the information obtained through one's own possible actions, derivations for a changed future-oriented behavior and thus also stimuli for the cognitive restructuring of one's own norms, values, and attitudes can be created (Kleebein et al., 2010 , p. 19).

In a secondary school class in the Rheinisch-Bergisch district, with n = 86 students, the explorative method is applied in the form of social training in order to gain insight into initially unstructured situations.

Returning to the research questions, the categories in which they were applied and the methods used to inquire about them are outlined below:

• Q1 and Q2: Evaluating didactic methods of self-reflection, cognitive restructuring, change of perspective, and emotional reassessment by field-testing a targeted follow-up training, including the exercises “ Risk Assessment,” “Alcohol Impairment Goggles Memory,” and the role play “ The Last Two Minute.”

This moderated and focused discussion enables the participants to debate on behavioral measures that, on the contrary, lead to traffic safety behavior instead of risky behavior.

The research survey was conducted exclusively with an online survey instrument.

The implementation of the intervention measure took place in the respective class in a familiar environment. In favor of the largest possible usable activity area, a circle of chairs with a centrally located open area was organized.

The risk assessment

By creating a risk assessment (see Appendix risk assessment) along a marked line between the poles ”Dangerous“ to ”Harmless,“ the participants themselves define the subjective matter of danger and the dangerousness of different traffic situations and discuss them.

Participants then reviewed their assessment in class as well as in facilitated discourse and reassessed if necessary.

Individual maps or hazards have been picked up and repositioned again and again.

The pros and cons of hazard assessment as well as the presentation of the current legal situation regarding these maps formed the core of the accompanying moderation.

Guided discovery as a technique from cognitive behavioral therapy serves the cognitive restructuring. One's own view of things and the perspective taken is then also reconsidered with the help of a Socratic dialog. Uncovering and moderated entanglement in contradictions make it clear that misbehavior in road traffic is without advantage and only seemingly logical. By creating confusion, distorted beliefs can be reframed and dysfunctional biases can be restructured into realistic assessments (Revenstorf and Burkhard, 2015 , p. 256).

The view from the meta-level leads to the realization that the previous way of thinking is only one possibility among many and that other perspectives are just as realistic (Beck, 2013 , p. 223 ff.) ( Table 1 ).

Overview of disputation techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy according to Wills, 2014 .

As a result, a process of cognitive restructuring can be initiated and sustainably anchored in these exercises. The joint discovery in the peer group, guided by the facilitator, makes this possible ( Figure 2 ).

Overview of the “Risk Assessment” exercise.

The ”fatal vision alcohol goggles“–memory

Police, Deutsche Verkehrswacht (German road safety organization), ADAC (General German Automobile Club), schools, and other institutions use fatal vision alcohol goggles at campaign days and driver safety training courses to warn against alcohol consumption. The fatal vision alcohol goggles can simulate different levels of intoxication, produce limited all-round vision, double vision, misjudgments for proximity and distances, confusion, tunnel vision, delayed reaction time, and the feeling of insecurity (see https://www.lwl.org/ks-download/downloads/TakeCare/Toolbox/additional_exercises/Rauschbrille_Drunk%20Buster_Germany.pdf , 08.09.2022). The simulation refers to the representation of some intoxication effects as they can be found with increasing blood alcohol concentration (BAC) in the literature (Just, 2020 , p. 464). Figure 3 shows the own experiences with the fatal vision alcohol goggles.

Overview of the “Fatal vision alcohol goggles” exercise.

The effects observed in the exercise are used for a targeted evaluation and are used to check dysfunctional assumptions. In the exploration, an exchange of experiences about the effects of alcohol takes place, and legal basics and consequences are explained.

The role play ”The last two minute”

Participants simulate a driving situation in which they can actively influence events through their own actions.

The typical causes of serious injuries in road traffic had been communicated to the participants through the previous exercises and were therefore familiar to them.

However, knowing something does not necessarily mean protecting oneself from it. Initiating a specific action requires more than just “ the desire to do it and the knowledge of how to do it” (Weinert et al., 1987 , p. 3), according to Heckhausen and Gollwitzer's “Rubicon model.” Furthermore, it is necessary to be able to access behavior that has already been actively performed, which can then also be retrieved during stress.

The recall of an already known behavior, an already thought-out course of action, can also be possible in stress according to the theory of “ embodied cognition ” by Margaret Wilson. According to this theory, body, mind, and environment influence each other in thinking, feeling, and acting. Our thoughts trigger embodied reactions and vice versa (Wilson, 2002 , p. 625). That means, any perception, both positive and negative, is stored as body memory with the corresponding physical attitude at that experienced moment. In the present role play, that would be the assumption, the experience at the time of the driving simulation, including the associated body posture and behavior, would be completely remembered in a later re-experience and could be reproduced as an automatism (Wilson, 2002 , p. 634).

In this role play, students are asked to put themselves in the situation of being in a vehicle 2 min before a fatal crash. The social situation in the vehicle is presented to all the students by the following introduction:

Through a conversation with the parents of one of the people involved in the accident, we know that the couple in the front seats were arguing when they left the parents' house. Jan and Marc are best friends, and Marc would never publicly criticize Jan, even if he made a driving mistake. Steffi is in a particularly awkward position socially: she has only been dating Marc for 2 weeks and is being taken out for the first time by the group in the evening. If she speaks up critically, she risks making a bad impression .

Exercise assumption: all occupants of the car were killed in a collision at night with a roadside tree. (Source: https://crashkurs-nrw.uni-koeln.de/handeln-ueben , 08.09.2022). Role-playing builds up routines, behavioral sequences, and reactions. By trying out new behaviors, basic assumptions are changed, which in turn leads to new skills. Participants detect their own limits and weak points in critical situations and can work out solution scenarios (Beck, 2013 , p. 257).

At the beginning, the role play offers a perspective transfer from the outside role to the influential driver and passenger role and puts the participants in the position of actively leading a car ride into disaster.

The deliberate bringing about of a catastrophe with a subsequent analysis of the risk factors should reveal the protection opportunities to the students that could have contributed to avoidance of the accident (Beck, 2013 , p. 226–35).

Example: loud music distracted the driver. Derived protective behaviors: Turn down music in vehicle or turn it off altogether .

We use participant observation to explore whether this type of pedagogical role-playing is suitable for identifying risky actions in drivers. Furthermore, we test whether the co-drivers can recall and apply rehearsed actions to avert risky behavior under the simulated realistic conditions.

Intended Goal: Pedagogical role plays should enable recognition of dysfunctional actions and lead to more safety- and risk-conscious behavior by practicing modified functional actions. In Figure 4 the role play is presented.

Overview of the exercise “The last two minute.”

In addition to the “Driving Situation” exercise, the following action strategies can be discussed:

• Where does a drunk passenger sit in the car? The result of the discussion should be: if possible, at the back on the right–furthest away from the driver under the supervision of others–without the possibility of directly influencing the driver and negatively affecting his or her driving actions.
• How can the passenger actively protect the driver? For example place arm on the backrest and separate the driver from the rear, observe what is happening in the car and intervene if necessary.
• Does loud music influence driving? Loud music influences concentration.
• What can I do as a passenger if I really want to get out of the vehicle? For example, feign nausea and vomiting.
• How do I deal with the situation if the driver is obviously unfit to drive before starting the journey? For example, take away the keys, call the police, do not get in the car myself.
• What options do I have for getting home safely if the scheduled driver drops out? For example, cab, calling parents or other friends, and public transportation.

Results of quantitative methods

Results preliminary research.

In order to capture the thematic needs of participants coming to the follow-up after a Crash Course stage event, an online survey of 86 participants was conducted 1 week after the stage event. The purpose was to clarify, prior to the intervention, which content-related questions remained unanswered among the target group after the stage event. Furthermore, the studies by Hackenfort suggest that reactance may already be present in some participants following the confronting stage event. The extent of this reactance should to be quantified with this survey. The survey conducted using the LimeSurvey® tool yielded the following results: 2020, secondary school grade 9, follow-up Crash Course NRW, n = 86 (complete responses: 71, dropouts: 6, did not participate in electronic survey: 9). Out of this 71:

• Twenty-two participants (31%) were taking part in the “Accompanied driving from 17” program at the time of the survey.
• Fifty-two participants (73%) felt sorry for the actors (SQ001).
• Sixty-seven participants (94%) wanted to prevent something like this from happening to them too (SQ002).
• Fourteen participants (20%) did not know at all/not at all that accidents can have these consequences (SQ003).
• One participant (1,5%) was “fully afraid”/5 participants (7,5%) were “rather afraid” to drive a car themselves (SQ004).
• Fifty-five participants (77%) found it important to talk about traffic accidents (SQ009).
• Forty-one participants (58%) already knew all this (SQ005).
• Fourteen participants (20%) were annoyed (SQ006).
• Ten participants (14%) would have preferred to go outside (SQ007).
• Forty-one participants (58%) will recommend the event to others (SQ008).
• Forty-two participants (60%) wanted causes of accidents to be addressed in follow-up (SQ001).
• Fifty-two participants (73%) wished that it was addressed how an accident can be prevented (SQ002).
• Fifty-one participants (71%) wished that it was addressed which situations are dangerous in road traffic (SQ003).
• Thirty-four participants (48%) wanted to know who takes care of the victims after a traffic accident (SQ004).
• Forty-six participants (65%) wanted to know more about legal conditions (SQ005).
• Forty participants (56%) wanted to learn more about the influence of health and traffic risk (SQ007).
• Forty-four participants (62%) wanted to know exactly what alcohol, drugs and medication do (SQ006).
• Two participants (10 %) indicated that they had no interest in follow-up at all (SQ008).

Results of the post-test

After the follow-up training, a quantitative survey was again conducted using the survey tool (2020, secondary school class 9, follow-up Crash Course NRW, n = 86 (fully answered: 57, dropouts: 15, did not participate in the electronic survey: 14). Out of this 57:

• Thirty-four participants (59%) consider distraction to be a dangerous risk factor (SQ001).
• Thirty-four participants (59%) consider alcohol to be a dangerous risk factor (SQ009).
• Thirty-four participants (59%) consider drugs to be a dangerous risk factor (SQ010).
• Thirty participants (52%) consider speeding to be a dangerous risk factor (SQ011).
• Thirty-four participants (59%) consider not wearing a seat belt to be a dangerous risk factor (SQ012).
• Thirty-six participants (63%) consider running a red light to be a dangerous risk factor (SQ013).
• Thirty-one participants (54%) also consider the passenger to be responsible for preventing an accident (SQ008).
• Twenty-one participants (37%) consider drinking a little alcohol to be harmless (SQ006).
• Fifteen participants (26%) are often told by others to be more careful (SQ003).
• Twenty-two participants (38%) feel safer now because they know more than they did before (SQ001).
• Fifteen participants (26%) see more potential for change in themselves (SQ004).
• Eighteen participants (31%) have a desire to change (SQ005).
• Five participants (8%) would like to try something risky now more than ever (SQ007).

In contrast to the preliminary research, which took place in class during the lesson time, the post-test was given to the participants during the break. This explains the lower participation average.

Through the results of the post-test it could be recognized that the knowledge needs of the participants could be taken up and adequately processed. The application of the training tools was able to trigger the personal development of the participants with regard to a more differentiated way of thinking in relation to their own risk behavior vs. their own safety behavior in road traffic, in order to critically reflect on and review their own behavior.

Results risk assessment

The situations depicted on the cards describe risky situations from everyday life, which in some cases result in fines and in many cases have been the cause of traffic accidents in recent years.

The participants were given the opportunity to rate the risk situations on a danger scale between “Dangerous” and “Harmless.” The following graphics show a comparison of the personal assessment of the dangerousness of the situations in relation to the real statistical dangerousness and the classification of the remoteness or closeness to reality on the basis of some exemplary examples.

For the purpose of visualization, the traffic-relevant situational parameters were assigned weighting factors according to their danger levels. Harmless corresponded to weighting factor = 0, medium danger range to weighting factor =1, high-risk to weighting factor =2. The number of cards filed was multiplied by this weighting factor to determine the danger level.

In addition, the personally assessed dangerousness is compared with the real statistical dangerousness of the selected situations in the second graph. The overview in Figure 5 shows to what extent the personal estimation of danger corresponds to reality:

Results of the risk assessment, comparison of personal assessments and statistical reality, (A) represents the assessment of the participants, (B) represents the actual dangerousness.

It can be seen that the risk of driving without a seat belt and being injured in an accident is rated highest by the participants. In fact, there is a lower risk here compared to the other causes of injury due to the high acceptance of wearing a seat belt in Germany. Compulsory seat belt use was introduced in Germany on January 1, 1976. At first, it applied only to the front seats, then in 1979 it was extended to the back seat. Through ongoing education campaigns, this road safety message seems to have become firmly embedded in the minds of participants.

Participants' assessment of the dangerousness of being able to cross the street as a pedestrian between cars coincides with statistical reality.

Participants perceive the dangerousness of e-scooters to be more risky than the statistical data indicates. One reason for this could be recent news coverage that distorts public perception regarding traffic accidents involving e-scooters ( https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/e-scooter-unfaelle-101.html , 09/13/2022).

However, the participants' assessment of their fitness to drive under the influence of alcohol is estimated to be lower than the real statistical accident data shows. The above-mentioned risk of youthfulness could be a reason for this, as participants do not want to admit their own vulnerability in terms of physical reactions after alcohol consumption.

In addition to the level of risk, the situations described also expose dilemmas or raise moral questions. These are suitable for generating discussions on personal norms and values and for initiating changes of perspective.

Significantly striking was that the following risky situations were initially assessed as not dangerous:

• The pedestrian traffic light is just about to change to red, I quickly run across (misjudgement of the traffic rolling up again).
• I bought cabinets at furniture store and load them in the back seat (unsecured load).
• I only had one beer, I can still drive well with that (alcohol influence).
• With fever and headache, I drive quickly to the pharmacy (incorrect assessment of fitness to drive).
• I run across the tracks behind the train (fatal oncoming traffic, so-called “double strike”).
• Riding a bicycle across the pedestrian walkway (risk of collision, pedestrian zone ban).
• I turn right and look very thoroughly and for a long time to the left to see if anyone is coming (traffic coming from the right is not noticed).
• As a pedestrian, I walk quickly between cars at the crosswalk (visual obstruction).
• I pull over on the right-hand side of the freeway because I feel sick (danger on the hard shoulder).
• In a traffic jam I walk across the lane to see when it will go on (danger in the traffic rolling up again) Looking at the cell phone at a red light was only assigned to the medium risk area, although it corresponds to a fine offense according to the fine catalog and can be punishable by points, which corresponds to the assignment of a risky behavior by the legislator and thus administrative injustice (see https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/tatbestandskatalog-handy/ ).

An example of clarification of an unrecognized risky situation using Socratic dialog and cognitive restructuring can be found in the following documentation of Figure 6 :

Documentation of a facilitated conversation role card.

At the end of the discussion, no card was in the “Risk” range anymore. According to the post-test evaluation (post-test Appendix ), these discussions led the students to new insights.

However, it also became clear that while the importance of the seat belt has received a high level of acceptance, more education is needed in the areas of alcohol, drugs, and general driving skills. In addition, there is still a need for more awareness of the subtle risk situations in bicycle, scooter, and pedestrian traffic.

In the evaluation of the risk scale, it turned out that the division into three risk areas is unfavorable for a scientific analysis. Therefore, in the next implementation, four fields will be taped off on the floor to create a Likert scale and to have the areas “Risk,” “Rather Risk,” “Rather harmless,” and “Harmless” laid out.

Furthermore, it must be noted that a renewed comparison with the personal hazard assessment of the depicted situations on the cards after the discussion is missing. In a future research run, the participants should be asked again after the discussion to check their initially assigned hazard map with regard to the selected filing location and to re-sort it if necessary. This will allow any change in personal assessments of a hazard situation to be measurably tracked.

Results of qualitative methods

Results fatal vision alcohol goggles.

By means of field notes and observation protocols, the exercise with the intoxication glasses was researched via “Qualitative Observation.” Observation is considered a classic method of qualitative social research. It forms the basis of all empirical research activity (Smart et al., 2013 ).

The product of the present observation was handwritten notes in class, which were followed by timely comprehensible transcripts on a personal computer.

The observations revealed how the course posed motor and visual difficulties for all participants. These are described in more detail below.

In the course:

• Walking movements deviating to the right or left along an imaginary line.
• Raising the legs when walking.
• Extremely slow walking.
• Extending the arms forward while walking.

When picking up and sorting the cards:

• Targeted grasping of the cards not possible (miss-grasping).
• Often wiping from the side or large area across the floor to grab the card.
• Holding the card alternately near and far in front of the eyes to recognize digit.
• Having to turn card to recognize digit.
• Need to ask group to know digit.
• Cannot place cards parallel.

The recognition as well as the numerical assignment of the digits in the correct order on the cards and a faultless passing of the way was connected with the alcohol-typical failure symptoms.

Initially, witty remarks by the surrounding other participants led to insecurity for the first participants.

Later, participants who had gone through the course became more serious and provided active support from the sidelines.

Serious uncertainty and fright resulted in remarks like, “ Gross, I wouldn't have thought that!” or “ Oh my God, this is spooky!”

The participants did not expect the altering effect of alcohol on body reactions and human perception in this form.

This was followed by a detailed discussion of the results, the communication of legal alcohol limits, and possible legal consequences. The effects on private life and the peer group were also included.

In the setting of the exercise “ The Last Two Minute,” four classmates in the center of the room participated in a simulated car ride.

Results of the role play

The role player, who sat in the driver's position, was given a tablet with a pre-installed app. A game with a driving simulation was played on this during the role play. The idea was that the driver should do in the role play exactly what he would do in reality: he should steer a car over a road.

The car simulator on the tablet was a major distraction for both the classmates in the setting and the “bystanders.” They approached the driver and watched him operate the app. The desired driving dynamics and the actual role play of the approaching accident did not occur. Getting into the role situation, “The last two minute before a fatal traffic accident” was unattractive and secondary compared to the game on the tablet. As a result, the author of the article (moderator) changed the moderation and interrupted the tablet car simulator.

In the sense of the design-based research approach, the next iterative step would be to project a car simulator to a larger screen, so that the audience can watch the simulation without approaching the driver.

Now, specific questions to the occupants of the simulation were used to establish the reference to the imminent traffic accident. Options for action, which could positively contribute to preventing such an accident, were to be developed.

Ideas were incorporated into the discussion using the brainstorming method; references to the real world, personal experiences, and hearsay experiences were taken into account. As a result, it was possible to develop the options for action that are suitable for everyday life for the age group.

Finally, it was asked whether the selected methods were suitable for conveying the contents and for bringing about clarification. The degree of suitability was determined by whether the method led to a gain in knowledge. The methods are presented in Table 2 .

Overview of the evaluation of the applied methods, n = 57.

Discussion of the project as a whole

About half of the class, including participants in the “Accompanied Driving from 17” program, participated very lively and attentively in the discussions and contributed their own thoughts. Another quarter of the participants responded well to specific questions, and the last quarter was rather quiet, but seemed to follow cognitively and participated in all the exercises.

This confirms the will to deal with the topics of road safety again in the follow-up to the experienced event. This is also reflected in the results of the post-survey in the actual knowledge gained.

In this first step, a very good overview of the beginning research could be gained. The research results of the impact evaluation, according to which content-related topics from the stage event should be taken up in the follow-up, could be seamlessly incorporated in their demands.

As a result, it is clear that the curricular follow-up of the Crash Course NRW stage event is important because otherwise questions and emotions could remain unanswered, which without clarification could lead to reactance.

This is confirmed by the preliminary survey, in which there is clear evidence of both open questions and emotions that led to reactive responses.

This became clear in the following: on the one hand, only 41 out of 77 participants stated that they would recommend the event to others, as well as 14 participants who answered that they were annoyed by the program. Here, due to the execution of the survey at the time before the follow-up with the knowledge about the dynamics of cognitive dissonance, an insecurity and lack of self-efficacy can be assumed. In this respect, the dynamics of the boomerang effect as a result of fear appeals may be considered here as an effect of the stage event.

In the post-test, the statement “ I'm going to try something reckless now” ( Appendix post-test) was used to investigate reactance again. In total, 5 participants indicated here that they would like to do this. This recorded less reactance than was assumed prior to the event. In connection to the result of 22 participants stating after the event that they knew more in terms of road safety than before, it can be concluded that the follow-up and the knowledge imparted here led to a reduction in reactance and the development of behavioral options that provide security. However, it is necessary to verify and confirm this result through further research.

The following overview in Table 3 shows in a comparison to which criteria the follow-up has brought about a change in the participants' ways of thinking and convictions. Furthermore, it should be shown, which needs that the follow-up was able to address and to what extent.

Comparison of criteria of settings preliminary research ( n = 77) and post-test ( n = 57).

The latter criterion “Reactant reactions as a result of the fear appeal” confirms the research results of the impact evaluation by Prof. Dr. M. Hackenfort, ZHAW Zurich on the Crash Course NRW , according to which reactant behavior was also observed in individual cases.

The focus should be on the participants who developed reactance during the stage event and therefore belong to the risk group. The connection of the content of the stage event to the topics in the schools, then also to the topics of the follow-up, is very important in this context (Hackenfort, 2013 , p.155–160).

Here, too, it must be assumed based on this information that reactive behavior in the form of rejection of the event and negation of the danger is hidden behind these statements.

Quality criteria

When evaluating research results, there is a scientific consensus that research processes must be transparent and comprehensible, and that the quality of the results must be comprehensible in terms of their significance. Quality characteristics of validity, reliability, and objectivity are often used as core criteria in this procedure (Döring and Bortz, 2016 , p. 107).

The overview of Table 4 shows the extent to which the quality criteria were taken into account in this pre–post-survey:

Overview of the quality criteria of the preliminary test and post-test.

With regard to explorative research, an identical transfer of this process in qualitative research hardly finds acceptance. There are two problems with this approach. On the one hand, the systematics as well as the definitions of quantitative quality criteria are not infrequently used blurrily in these transfer attempts; on the other hand, it makes less sense to import criteria for studies that follow a completely different paradigm of scientific theory into the qualitative paradigm (Döring and Bortz, 2016 , p. 107). Here, it is more about representativeness in terms of content rather than purely statistical representativeness. More widely accepted than the adoption of quantitative quality criteria is a second approach, which aims to develop its own quality criteria from the logic of qualitative research and to specify the techniques for ensuring them. Against this background, further quality criteria have been developed in qualitative research, which are reviewed in Table 5 below according to Mayring (Godbersen, 2020 , p. 11):

Quality criteria of observational research according to Mayring, n = 86.

The impact of the Corona Protection Ordinance allowed only one event to be held, so that only four classes could be compared and the exercises could only be replicated to a limited extent. Whether the lessons learned, as well as the initial consolidations, remain manifest must be tested in follow-up events.

Answers to the research questions

Q1: Which didactic methods are suitable to extract and reinforce the safety messages of the stage event?

Q2: Which didactic methods are suitable to influence risk behavior in an empathy-expanding way?

The results of the post-survey (4.2.1) showed that the content-related needs of the participants were met during the follow-up training. The following methods from cognitive behavioral therapy were used:

• Methods that critically examine self-reflective own behavior and attitudes, norms and values, and risk and supposed security (cognitive restructuring according to A. Beck).
• Methods that expose contradictions in thinking (disputation techniques according to A. Beck).
• Methods that contrast possible courses of action and thus offer decision-making options (problem-solving training according to A. Beck).
• Methods that explain safety concepts and provide sufficient information about risks.
• Methods that strengthen self-efficacy (Socratic dialog).

These methods were used together with the tools to make the participants change their thinking. The results related to the effectiveness and usefulness of the tools “ Risk Scale,” “Intoxication Goggles,” and “ Role Play” in the post-test showed that the methods were successful in initiating a change in thinking. It was possible to launch a new and improved view of risk events in road traffic and to achieve more sensitivity. In addition, improved and new behaviors toward more safety behaviors could be implemented, including a “ Plan B” to be able to get out of an unsafely driven vehicle via pretending to vomit.

Individual needs, such as the need for knowledge about the aftercare of traffic accident victims, as well as the individual emotional situation, such as fear of driving, should at best be taken into account and successfully included in the search process by responding accordingly.

According to the results of the preliminary research (4.1.1), attendants need answers to the following issues after being confronted with real accidents in an accident prevention campaign;

• Accident avoidance strategies.
• Consequences of alcohol and drug use.
• Influence of own health status on road safety.
• Legal knowledge and,
• Accident follow-up.

In the course of the post-survey related to the questions on alcohol, drugs, the learned new safety behavior and related to the own possibilities of change, but also related to the discussions on post-accident care and on physical impairments due to medication on driving ability, it could be determined that these are suitable to establish an adequate exchange on traffic prevention topics and to fill knowledge gaps. The use of the supportive exercises carried out initiates simulations that are close to real life. The exchange of experiences in the peer group during the individual exercises helps to convey the messages adequately. In the post-survey, the respective questions about the exercises reflected the recognizability to everyday life and the usability of the exercises for the transfer into the same.

To solidify these findings, further research should be conducted after the COVID-19 Protective Measures have ended and prevention programs and large audience have resumed in schools.

Q4: Was reactive behavior generated by the Crash Course NRW stage event and could it be minimized through follow-up?

The preliminary survey clearly showed that reactive behavior was generated. ( Appendix Preliminary Test):

(SQ006) “ I was annoyed” (20%) .

(SQ007) “ I would have loved to walk out” (13%) .

(SQ008) “ I have no interest at all in a follow-up” (24%) .

(SQ008) “ I will not recommend the event to others” (40%) .

The need to leave the event and the statement not to recommend it to others may be interpreted as rejection and defensiveness toward the event. These responses were not picked up in the post-survey because they could not be acted upon quickly enough.

However, the research at this school has now brought attention to this reactance and another iterative pass will revisit this research question.

The post-test showed reactive behavior even after the follow-up:

(SQ007) “ I'm going to try something reckless now” (9%) .

In comparison, however, this result is significantly lower than the evidence in the preliminary test. Therefore, it may be concluded that the follow-up training was able to minimize the reactance behavior through the application of the educational and self-efficacy strengthening tools.

Limitations

Limitations of the road safety prevention concept.

Following the findings already obtained from the research of Hackenfort et al. on the impact evaluation of the Crash Course NRW stage event, it is not surprising that isolated reactance behavior can be observed despite a well-founded follow-up concept. The confrontation with life-changing events such as accidental injuries or accidental death and also the regulating roles of state legislation are the subject of the lesson follow-up and per se suitable to clarify a restriction of personal freedom or also the restriction of personal inviolability. The extent to which there is a willingness to accept one in favor of the other in a weighing of interests depends in particular on the constellations of personal norms and values and cannot always be cognitively restructured within two or three teaching units. Here, a limit of the instructional follow-up must be defined, because the more deeply a normative principle is anchored in personal attitudes, the more time a cognitive reevaluation requires. Also, dynamics such as convenience, group status, or simply dysfunctional habits must be considered here, first detected, and then resolved and transformed. This is often not feasible through a one-time instructional follow-up.

Limits of the study

Specific driving behaviors in traffic settings, such as steering, braking, or accelerating behavior, cannot be recorded with this study. Also not covered are personal indicators such as responsiveness, cognitive, or physical parameters that could result in any driving impairment and thus a risk factor for road safety.

Comparison of results with other studies

Comparable studies that have looked at the effectiveness of promotional campaigns in the road safety sector have also concluded that the effectiveness of an intervention measure increases when it is linked to a traffic education program or sanction (Faus et al., 2021b , p. 21). These findings support the intention to reinforce the safety-related messages from the Crash Course NRW stage event through instructional follow-up and to make them concretely actionable for participants through role simulations that are true to everyday life.

A study from the Dominican Republic that looked at the factor of remembering safety-related messages from traffic prevention campaigns found the following variables to be authoritative: driving a motor vehicle, habitual driving, and possession of a driver's license were causally related to retention of information. Thus, these variables are obviously key elements that distinguish drivers from non-drivers (Faus et al., 2021b , p. 15). However, the instructional follow-up of the Crash Course NRW stage event is aimed not only at young drivers but also at co-drivers aged 16 and above. This therefore includes road users who are not yet drivers and those who are still in training to obtain a driving license. The campaign also intends to sensitize future driving license holders already, to make them aware of the dangers of road traffic and to have a positive influence on them as co-drivers. This was also taken into account in the present research under the aspect of the assumption of responsibility by the co-driver.

Research gap

In spite of all the attention paid to the appreciative and constructive resolution of inner resistance to a new way of acting and behaving in road traffic, it is important to focus on yet another aspect that has not yet been addressed in this research: the question of whether the presence of police officers in the follow-up training can have a dysfunctional effect. In principle, schools are supposed to carry out the classroom follow-up, but sometimes, schools make use of the support of the police in the form of a traffic safety seminar in order to convey in-depth contents of the Crash Course NRW stage event. Here, the question arises whether the renewed presence of police officers maintains reactance or even exacerbates it. Depending on such a research result, schools and the commissioning ministry could be given a clear recommendation for the implementation of the follow-up training.

Temporarily interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, research should continue with the resumption of Crash Course NRW events to produce a valid result.

The obtained results from the post-survey reflect that the applied methods of cognitive restructuring, guided discovery, and structured recognition of potential hazards in the exercises that ultimately led the group to gain knowledge are the right ones (post-survey Appendix ).

Important remains basically the message from the fear appeal the trailblazing saving action option to hire. It is important to recognize that effective traffic accident prevention can only be successful when emotionalizing content is applied if stabilizing elements and concrete instructions for action are offered afterward.

The “Get off the gas!” campaign, as a comparable counterpart in traffic accident prevention, also has a very stable body of evidence in this regard (Holte, 2012 ). In addition to a higher willingness to take risks as a result of sensation seeking, an exaggerated expectation of self-efficacy, i.e., confidence in one's own driving abilities (“I am a particularly good driver”) plays a role (Holte, 2012 ).

A misjudgment in any direction of one's own ability will always have a negative effect on lived road safety.

We have to accept: Young drivers will always be difficult to convince. Despite all campaigns in favor of attention, this group remains the “problem child” in traffic accident statistics.

Ultimately, it remains to be considered how the contradiction between the search for stimuli and the exaggerated, erroneous confidence in one's own driving skills on the one hand, and the existing expectation of self-efficacy through emotionalizing campaigns on the other, can be resolved. Through the developed training, it can be possible to uncover exactly these contrary erroneous assumptions and shift them into a true reflection of reality, thereby increasing traffic safety behavior.

If making correct decisions relevant to traffic safety is the result, every event has achieved its goal.

Future research

In a subsequent research, we show how another iterative loop comparatively addresses the issue of fear appeals in an alternating police traffic accident prevention event. Here, we will explore in more depth whether certain criteria repeatedly lead to reactance, which is minimized by consistent intervention:

Effectiveness of intervention measures against the reactance effect in school safety prevention.

Referring to the research findings of Hackenfort et al. a third publication is discussed. It was suggested by Hackenfort et al. to generate further knowledge in an “accident scene analysis” and to transfer it to the knowledge gained in the Crash Course NRW stage event (Klimmt et al., 2015 , p. 257). In this way, options for action in traffic safety-relevant behavior should be acquired and thus the boomerang effect minimized.

To achieve this, local accident hotspots can be analyzed and vulnerable danger spots such as school routes can be focused on.

This option can also be used as a follow-up to Crash Course NRW to gain a better understanding of risk situations and safety behavior.

Also building on this study, a further iterative loop of a subsequent publication will focus on such a form of gaining knowledge.

In addition, this form of teaching can target digital teaching in times of lockdown and take into account the current requirements of public health developments:

Traffic space analysis in the blended learning method–a new teaching style of traffic safety in times of COVID-19.

Data availability statement

Ethics statement.

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardian/next of kin.

Author contributions

SB developed to the conception and design of the study, wrote the manuscript, conducted the follow-up training and the part taking observation, and developed and evaluated questionnaires for the preliminary research and the post-test. AB and SB led the design of the follow-up training. All authors approved the submitted version.

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We acknowledge support for the Article Processing Charge from the DFG (German Research Foundation, 491454339).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1046403/full#supplementary-material

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Home — Essay Samples — Science — Speed — Why Speed Limits Are Important

Why Speed Limits Are Important

• Categories: Speed Transportation

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Words: 795 |

Published: Sep 7, 2023

Words: 795 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Preserving road safety, reducing accident severity, enhancing traffic flow, encouraging responsible driving behavior, protecting vulnerable road users, environmental benefits, conclusion: a critical component of road safety.

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Essay on Traffic Rules for Students and Children

500+ words essay on traffic rules.

Traffic is a term familiar with the moving vehicles, the overloaded carriages, the four-wheelers, the herd of cattle or a number of other animals at times. Moreover, a crowd of people and pedestrians shape a major element of street traffic. Rules is an official statement of what must or must not be done save us from disorder and messes. Thus, the term “Traffic-Rules” provide systematic and controlled measures that a person needs to take on the road for safely reaching his or her destination.

Key Rules of Traffic (Rules of Safety)

The road rules make certain the saving of lives through desirable modes of behavior on the road. The prime rules are as follows:

• For allowing the people on the opposite side to cross safely and also permit the automobile on the backside to go beyond, we need to keep the vehicle to the left.
• Keep the vehicle at the left when parting the former road and entering a new one at the instance of taking a left turn.
• Bring the vehicle to the center and then twist left at the time of taking a right turn.
• Lower the speed of the vehicle at the turnings, where there are a lot of blockages, at the endings of the road, at zebra crossings, on the occasion of overtaking and such other instances.
• Compulsorily put on a helmet, not as a condition but to prevent any head injury or any misfortune. The relaxation is provided only to the Sikhs who wore turbans.
• Inappropriate Parking is illegal. Parking in close or nearness to the passage of pedestrians, on the main road, where there is overcrowding, in any way causing interference to another vehicle in passing away, at the doorway of any organization, extremely close to the traffic lights and equivalent cases.
•  We shall use the Horn only at essential circumstances. Horn must be used with care and must not be a cause of noise pollution .
• Maintain an adequate distance to avoid a collision. Any clashes can occur between the two vehicles when there is an improper distance in between. The sudden stop of a vehicle in front make the vehicle behind to apply breaks suddenly too. So, it can cause a clash.
• We shall not apply breaks all of a sudden. Applying breaks all of a sudden may cause an abrupt stop. The vehicle will get a jerk which can cause injury.
• Always follow the police officer’s directions and traffic signals. The police officers and their directions are for our benefit and not to earn money from us. We cannot risk our precious lives by going against these. Thus, we must follow the same.
• Be very careful while taking a U-turn. U-Turn can be risky. Never take a U-turn without looking at the traffic behind. Also, not to take one at the disrupted traffic or at the traffic lights. Furthermore, make a U-turn after giving hand signals and not taking at the places prohibited for the same.

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S ignificance of Traffic Rules

Traffic rules are not made by the government for earning money out of them. It is for the protection of the drivers.  Driving tests are also conducted to fulfill the same purpose.  Knowledge of the traffic signs (the sign of speed limit, no entry, and stop signs) is necessary.

These help in maintaining a moderate speed, not entering the prohibited places and stopping by lowering the speed of the vehicle respectively. Following the rules of the road provide our experience. Thus, it assists in avoiding accidents.

Another important cause to follow traffic rules is that we can protect several other lives too by our responsible driving. The number of cattle dying because of road accidents can be decreased. Also, we will inculcate healthy habits in ourselves. Giving up drinking of alcohol also adds to the measure for safe driving.

We observe a number of accidents taking place each day because of irresponsible driving. Just for saving a little amount of time we don’t even care for our valuable lives. Also, we are prepared to place the life of others in danger too!! Such irresponsible behavior needs to be changed. Traffic Rules teach us to become good and accountable citizens of the motherland.

There is a popular saying” Slow and steady wins the race.” Thus, drive cautiously and reach your destination safely. Only when you will reach safe, you can win time for your family and for the service of the nation at large!!

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Essay on Road Safety Awareness

Students are often asked to write an essay on Road Safety Awareness in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Road Safety Awareness

Importance of road safety.

Road safety is crucial for everyone. It helps prevent accidents and save lives. We must follow traffic rules, like wearing helmets and seat belts.

Role of Awareness

Let’s pledge to be responsible citizens and follow road safety rules. Remember, our safety is in our hands.

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250 Words Essay on Road Safety Awareness

Introduction, the importance of road safety awareness.

Road safety awareness is not just about knowing the rules but also understanding the consequences of not following them. It involves understanding the potential risks and hazards on the road and how to avoid them. Awareness campaigns serve as a reminder to all road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists, about their responsibilities and the importance of safety.

Strategies to Improve Road Safety Awareness

Educational institutions can play a pivotal role in promoting road safety awareness. Incorporating road safety lessons in the curriculum can help inculcate the importance of safety from a young age. Moreover, organizing seminars, workshops, and awareness campaigns can further emphasize the importance of road safety.

Role of Technology

In this digital era, technology can be leveraged to enhance road safety awareness. Mobile apps and online platforms can provide interactive learning experiences, making the learning process more engaging and effective.

Road safety awareness is an essential aspect of creating a safe environment for all road users. It is a collective responsibility, and everyone must play their part. By promoting awareness and leveraging technology, we can make our roads safer and save countless lives.

500 Words Essay on Road Safety Awareness

Introduction to road safety awareness.

Road safety awareness also plays a significant role in maintaining order on the roads. Traffic rules and regulations are designed to manage the flow of traffic and prevent chaos. When these rules are ignored, it leads to confusion, chaos, and ultimately, accidents.

The Role of Education in Road Safety

Education plays a vital role in promoting road safety awareness. From a young age, children should be taught about traffic rules, the importance of wearing seat belts, and the dangers of reckless driving. Schools and colleges should include road safety education in their curriculum to ensure that the future generation is well equipped with this knowledge.

Technological Innovations and Road Safety

The advent of technology has brought about significant improvements in road safety. Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), such as automatic braking, lane-keeping assist, and blind-spot detection, are reducing the risk of accidents. However, while technology provides valuable tools for enhancing safety, it is not a substitute for awareness and responsible behavior. Even the most advanced safety features are ineffective if drivers are not attentive and cautious.

Conclusion: The Collective Responsibility

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Essay on Road Safety for Children and Students

Table of Contents

Essay on Road Safety: Road safety is a safety measure to reduce the risk of road accidents and road side injury because of the mistakes of people while driving on the road. Road Safety in today’s context is the most significant issue which relates to the safety of public on road. Millions of lives are lost annually throughout the world due to road accidents, resulting in huge loss of finance and resources for individuals as well as for the nation.

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Every year governments throughout the world spend billions on the treatment and welfare of accident victims and their rescue, if they are lucky enough to make it alive. There is an urgent need to make people more aware about road safety precautions and why they matter so much. Strict laws must also be implemented to enforce road safety norms.

The road safety essay is intended to warn about the risks that exist while walking on the road. It is essential to pay attention to the safety rules in order not to become a victim of the high-speed traffic.

Road safety involves following rules and regulations to prevent accidents on the road. Safe driving is crucial to protect passengers, pedestrians, and other drivers. Improving the quality of roads is also essential in reducing accidents.

Short and Long Essay on Essay on Road Safety

Road safety is a most common and important topic and has been added to various fields like education, social awareness, etc., in to order to bring more awareness in the public especially new age group people.

Students should be well recognized with this topic to fulfill following needs in their schools like making project, debates, attend quiz competition or essay writing competition.

We have provided here some paragraph and essay on road safety under various words limit according to the student’s need and requirement. They can select any road safety essay given below:

Road Safety Essay 100 words

Road safety is a safety measure to reduce the risk of road accidents and road side injury because of the mistakes of people while driving on the road. We cannot count the daily road side accidents and death of people because of the driving mistakes and lack of road traffic rules followers. Every person going on the road has risk of injury or death. Such as pedestrians, motorists, cyclists, passengers, etc.

Everyone needs to be well aware of the road traffic rules especially children and young people who are at significant road accident risks. According to the statistics (World Health Organization, 2008), it is found that most of the hospitalization cases and leading cause of death are because of the road trauma.

Road Safety Essay 150 words

Road safety is very necessary while being on the road and must know by all because road accidents are the leading cause of death. Everyone should learn the road traffic and safety rules at a very early age to perform safer behaviors in the later life. Following are the road safety rules:

• Everyone going on the road (especially drivers) must be to the left and let other vehicles pass on the opposite direction to pass.
• Drivers should be in slow speed while bending or turning on the roads.
• Take extra precaution while going on the over-crowded roads and road junctions.
• Bikers or people using two wheel vehicles must wear helmets of superior quality otherwise they should never go on the road without helmet.
• Speeds of the vehicles should be within the speed limit and slow especially in the areas of school, hospital, colony, etc.
• Every vehicle on the road should maintain the right distance among them to avoid collisions and accidents.
• Everyone using road should be well aware of the road signs and must follow rules.
• All the road safety rules and regulations must be in mind while traveling.

Road Safety Essay 200 words

As we all are well aware that road accidents, injury and death has been very common now-a-days. People not following the road traffic rules and road safety measures are the main cause of such accidents on the roads. We always hear in the news or by our friends about the road accidents because of the wrong side driving, lack of road safety rules, measures, high speed, drunk driving, etc.

Government has made variety of road traffic and road safety rules for everyone using road for their safety and reducing the number of daily road accidents. We should follow the all the rules and regulations such as practicing defensive driving, using safety measures, maintaining speed limit, understanding road signs, etc.

Road safety risks have been increased because of the driver distraction due to the use of cell-phone or other electronic devices while driving. In such cases, traffic laws and rules helps us a lot to keep away from the road accidents and injury. Road safety measures are the tools can save from the expensive traffic fines, serious offences, removal of driving licenses, etc. Pedestrians also know the rules of walking on the road like proper use of crosswalks, use of zebra crossing, etc.

Road Safety Essay 250 words

Road safety is the prevention and protection of road accidents by using all the road safety measures. It is to secure people while traveling on the roads. It is to make safe all the road users such as pedestrians, two-wheelers, four-wheelers, multi-wheelers, and other transport vehicle users. Practicing road safety measures is very good and safe to all people throughout their life. Everyone should respect others while driving or walking on the road and take care of their safety.

Importance of Road Safety

People safety on the road is one of the most important aspects in order to avoid road accidents, injury, and deaths. We can judge the importance of road safety on the basis of national statistical data about total reported accidents and deaths. The data shows that almost 42% cases involve pedestrians and one way road users.

Methods of Road Safety

There are various methods of creating awareness among common public such as seminars, workshops, students education by adding basic road-safety lessons to syllabus, make people aware about green cross code i.e. stop, look, listen, think and then cross, understanding of road signs etc. Following road safety tips could help to protect all the road problems. Some effective measures of road safety are like basic awareness about vehicle, defensive driving according to weather and road conditions, following traffic rules, wearing seat belts, avoiding over-speeding, awareness programs etc.

Road safety is very important nowadays as there has been too much of increase in vehicles on road and it becomes crucial that we follow the traffic rules and laws and save ourselves and our families from road accidents. Also making other people aware of road safety rules could make our roads safe.

Road Safety Essay 300 words

Road accidents have become very common due to the vehicle collisions and ignorance of proper road safety measures. The number of deaths is increasing due to the motor vehicle collisions by the people ignoring road safety rules. All the roads are busier for full day where vehicles are running in their high-speed. People in the modern world are used to their personal transportation which increases traffic on the roads. Under these conditions it is very important for everyone to be safe on roads and to follow all the traffic rules and regulations.

How to avoid road accidents

Everyone should undergo a complete driving course under the guidance of an authorized instructor before starting to drive on the roads. Road safety measures should be added in the school curriculum so that students can get complete knowledge on traffic regulation. Most of the road accidents occur because of incomplete knowledge about operating vehicles and lack of road safety measures.

Use of old vehicles on road is also a cause of accidents, so it is very important to get the vehicles checked for fitness on a regular basis. Proper and timely service of vehicles also helps to reduce road accidents. All the drivers should thoroughly check their vehicles daily before start of any trip and if any issue is found it has to be rectified immediately.

Traffic accidents are a major cause of deaths in India and it has affected a huge number of families. Hence it becomes very important that everyone should strictly follow the traffic rules and should always drive safely with respecting the other people and vehicles on the road. We should avoid rash driving, drunken driving and jumping red lights. Wearing helmets and seat belts could highly reduce the number of causalities during an accident. A unison effort from each and everyone could definitely reduce the number of accidents and make our roads safer.

Road Safety Essay 600 words

Road safety is must to be paid proper attention by each and every person on the earth, whether using vehicles or not. Children and students are the most vulnerable group towards the road accidents, minor or major injuries and even death because of the lack of adult supervision. There should not be late in making children well aware about the road safety rules and measures in their early ages. It should be the duty of parents and teachers to teach them properly under their nice supervision.

Need of Road Safety Knowledge for Children

According to the statistics, it is found that there are most of the road accidents cases in which children are involved, so they are at high risk than other age group people. They need road safety knowledge and education from their early ages. It should be started from their home and schools by adding this subject to their syllabus. Some points are mentioned below proving the fact that why road safety is so important for kids and children:

• Children are children, no one can be sure about what they will do next at home or other crowded place especially road during traffic situation.
• Children become completely innocent, they cannot judge the vehicles speed moving on the road.
• Drivers also cannot recognize their mood to move on the road especially when they try to cross the road in front of the vehicle because of their small height.
• They cannot judge how often vehicles can come on the empty road.
• They can cross road from anywhere on the road because they have no idea about proper place to cross the road.
• They become fearful soon and do not understand what they should do when they see vehicles coming to their direction.

Road Safety Rules for Children

Following are some essential road safety rules play great role in protecting children from road accidents by making them responsible pedestrian on the road:

• Parents should teach their children to be extra attentive and look everywhere (left and right) before crossing the road street.
• Children should always cross the roads by holding hands of their elders or friends.
• They should never run on the roads, should not be in hurry or leaving parents hand and be calm.
• They need to be more cautious on the road without getting distracted by anything.
• They should be practiced by their parents to follow sidewalks only or always use left side on the roads where sidewalks are unavailable.
• They should be taught to only cross the roads at crossroads after seeing traffic signals for pedestrians.
• They must be aware of the meaning of colors (red means stop, green means go and yellow means also stop), traffic light basics and importance of traffic signs on the roads.
• They should use rear side of the passenger seat while getting out of a car or bus.
• Children should be taught to not to play on the roads or other places out of playing zone.
• They should wear helmet and use all the measures while riding bicycle on the roads by ensuring proper functioning of brakes, horns and steering.
• They should not use earphone or other music listening instruments while riding bicycle on the road.
• Parents may teach their children in better way by wearing seat-belts while driving a car or helmet while driving a bike anytime. Parents should follow all the road safety rules and road traffic rules while driving vehicle to establish good examples in front of their children as they are first example in the lives of their kids.

Conclusion :

Road safety is very important for people of all age group to be safe and secure as well as reduce the number of road accidents and injury cases. So, everyone should strictly follow all the rules, regulations and signs of road traffic lights. Children should be well practiced from the end of their parents at home and get proper study by the teacher in the school.

Road Safety Essay 1000 words

“Road Safety” today is one of the greatest public health issues throughout the globe. Millions lives are lost annually because of fatality arising due to road accidents, and the clock is ticking constantly. “Road safety” cannot be undermined if the world wants to achieve goals of sustainable development, prosperity and growth. The issue concerns all types of road users – pedestrians, motorists, motorcyclists etc, as well as unauthorized road side vendors and other encroachers. In the following essay we will know the significance of “Road Safety” and how staying safe on road is imperative for a happy and healthy and prosperous life, of an individual as well as that of the nation.

What does “Road Safety” Means?

“Road Safety” refers to the safety of the user while using the road. There are defined rules and procedures to be followed while using the road and it’s mandatory to abide by them to ensure a safe transit. Such “Road Safety Rules” have been laid by the respective governments in order to ensure the safety of every road user. Traffic signals, sign boards, security cameras, dividers, foot paths are some of the tools to ensure Road Safety.

Road Safety Concern – Global Statistics

Global stats on Road Safety reveal large variations based on a nation’s population, economy and state of general public awareness. Developed countries ensure much better road safety through a large network of roads and precautionary measures. Contrastingly, the situation is grim in developing and underdeveloped countries.

Statistics reveal that approximately 1.5 Million lives are lost every year globally due to road accidents; more than 90% of which occur in under developed and developing nations. More than half of the figure constitutes of vulnerable road users like pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists.

Apathy towards road safety causes the death of maximum number of children and youth, than by any other cause. That is not all – nearly 20 to 50 Million people suffer non fatal injuries, often resulting in a permanent disability.

Road Safety – Importance

The importance of Road Safety cannot be undermined if the agendas of sustainable development are to be met. A fatal road accident results in a trauma not only for the victim, but also for his/her dependants and loved ones. On the other note, road crashes in most of the countries cost 3% of their overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

If a victim of a fatal accident is lucky to survive, he/she is most likely to have any kind of disability. Thus a road mishap is not only a strain on the victim’s financial resources but also on the nation’s as well; not to mention the emotional trauma to the dependents.

Therefore, appropriate measures must be taken to implement road safety and to ensure safe transit for every road user. Ensuring road safety is very important and must be prioritized by the governments as well as individuals.

Factors Compromising Road Safety and Counter Measures

There are various factors those compromise road safety. Driver’s behavior; apathy towards traffic rules; unruly behavior, negligence, road rage are some of the main factors compromising road safety. Below we will go through some of the main causes of road accidents-

1) User’s behaviour

A road is used by variety of users – pedestrians, motorcyclists, cyclists and motorists. An unruly driver compromises not only his own life but also the life of others. A driver, who jumps a signal, either habitually or unknowingly, could seriously kill or fatally injure pedestrian or other drivers. Even a careless pedestrian can bring doom upon himself and others. Any unruly behavior must be dealt with strictly to avoid it getting repeated. Imposing large fines on jumping signals and similar misconducts could bring down the number of road mishaps.

2) Unauthorized/Adolescent Drivers

Lack of driving experience is a prime cause behind the deaths of children and youths belonging to the age group of 15 to 25. In under developed and developing countries, licenses are issued to children below permissible age limit, violating the law. Such adolescent and unauthorized drivers tend to be unruly, risking their own life and also the life of others. Teenagers tend to over speed and violate traffic rules, just for sheer pleasure and false praises. Teach your children that driving before the permissible age is not only an offence, but is also life threatening. Report any underage driver to the authorities.

3) Drunken Driving

Drunken driving claims millions of lives globally. Low and middle income group countries are the worst affected. Alcohol impacts a driver’s behaviour and his ability to make judgments. A Drunken driver tends to me more unruly and uncontrolled on the road. All in all, alcohol weakens the necessary skills to drive, risking lives on road. Even a drunken pedestrian is a potential threat to his own as well as other’s safety. Strict laws and a policy of zero tolerance against drunken driving should be implemented in order to make the roads safer.

4) Avoiding Safety Gears

Not wearing helmet, avoiding safety belts causes maximum number of casualties resulting from a road crash. People either habitually avoid wearing safety equipment or do it on purpose, not realizing that it could mean all the difference between life and death. More than 90% casualties in a road mishap occur due to not wearing helmet or seat belt. Vehicle safety gears are the mandatory for road safety, and must be worn at any cost. There is a need to raise general awareness about the use of safety gears and their significance in saving lives. Wearing safety equipment while driving should be made mandatory and violators must be prosecuted strictly.

5) Poor Infrastructure

Poor infrastructure often results in road accidents and is a major factor compromising road safety. The numbers are greater in underdeveloped and developing nations. Uncompleted roads, road side construction, unfinished pavements, absence of foot over bridges are some of the infrastructural shortages contributing to road accidents. Relevant authorities should take measures to speed up any unfinished work, which concerns the safety of road users. Proper illumination and road signs must be provided on construction sites to avoid any mishap.

Road safety is a global public health issue and must be ensured by relevant authorities. Respective governments must take necessary policy and administrative measures to ensure as well as improve safety on roads. Better infrastructure of roads with sufficient illumination should be provided in order to ensure safety. Above all, there is a need for us to be concerned about our own safety and conduct while using the road.

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Essay on Road Safety FAQs

What is road safety in 10 lines.

Road safety means following rules to stay safe on roads. It's about obeying traffic laws, wearing seatbelts, and not using phones while driving. Pedestrians should use crosswalks and look both ways. Avoiding speeding and drunk driving is crucial for road safety. Everyone should respect traffic signals and be considerate of others on the road.

What is road safety for Class 4?

Road safety for Class 4 is learning how to be safe on roads. It includes understanding traffic signs, crossing roads carefully, and always wearing a helmet while cycling. It's important to listen to adults and follow their road safety advice.

Why is road safety important?

Road safety is important because it saves lives. Following road rules and being cautious prevents accidents and keeps everyone safe. It's essential for protecting ourselves and others on the road.

What is a road safety essay?

A road safety essay is a written piece that explains the importance of following road rules and being cautious on the road. It may discuss the impact of road accidents and ways to improve road safety.

What is road safety in short?

Road safety means following rules and being careful on the road to prevent accidents and protect lives.

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Essay on Traffic and Road Safety

Road safety is the way in which we avoid accidents on roads. Methods of reducing risk and promoting road safety include safe driving practices, seat belt laws, speed limits, drunk driving penalties, following traffic signals etc. The essay on traffic and road safety discusses different ways to reduce the number of accidents on roads. One way is to make sure that drivers don’t use their cell phones while driving. Another way is to install blind spot mirrors in front of and behind buses so that they can keep an eye on children crossing the street if there isn’t a pedestrian crossing nearby. Other ways to reduce the number of accidents is by increasing the number of carpool lanes and restricting the use of these lanes to vehicles with more than one passenger. The government should also implement policies that make it easier for people to use public transportations such as buses and trains.

Neighbourhoods with more traffic also have more accidents and injuries. To address these issues, cities are making special efforts to reduce traffic in dangerous areas by enforcing speed limits and using directional arrows. The government has several solutions for this problem, such as stricter laws for drunk driving, speed cameras, and stricter penalties for reckless driving. These strategies have been less successful in developing countries like India, where too many vehicles are on the roads. Now, let us read the importance of following traffic laws by referring to BYJU’S essay on traffic rules and road safety.

Importance of Road Safety

Road safety is critical for all countries and regions. Most accidents involve vehicles travelling at 80km/h or more. An essay on traffic and road safety helps understand the significance of road safety awareness .

While many people think road safety is only about being safe on the road, it is not true. Being safe on the road includes knowing what to wear while driving and how to stay alert while travelling. Drivers should remain calm while driving, know what to do if they get a flat tire, and know when to change lanes.

It is the responsibility of every road user to ensure their safety and the safety of other people sharing the road. If we are driving at night and it’s raining, it is crucial to maintain a slow speed because it would be easy to slip on a wet road. We also need to keep our distance from other vehicles and follow the posted speed limits.

Importance of Following Traffic Rules

After reading the importance of road safety, let us understand the significance of following traffic rules by reading BYJU’S essay on traffic rules and road safety. It is important to follow traffic rules as they are in place to ensure the safety of all drivers as well as passengers. This includes tracking speed limits, yielding at intersections, and driving in the correct direction on one-way streets. If someone decides not to follow these traffic laws, it could cause a collision that injures the driver and those around them.

To conclude, road safety and traffic rules are not just for the drivers but also for pedestrians, cyclists, bike riders and others. Rules are designed to keep everyone safe. Let us drive safe and not cause harm to others. For more essays, GK questions , questions and worksheets , visit BYJU’S website.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is road safety.

Road safety means the measures to be taken by everyone while travelling on roads, and it is the assurance of a safe journey when using roads. There are many dangers on the road, and we must stay cautious. For instance, traffic signs can tell us to stop so that we can avoid accidents.

How to avoid accidents on the road?

There are many ways you can avoid accidents. One way is by changing lanes when there is oncoming traffic and getting off the highway when possible. Another precaution is to make sure that our car is in good working condition and never drive while under alcohol or drugs. Be careful during inclement weather, and always obey traffic laws, no matter the speed.

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Traffic education is highly important for all of the people in our country . It has been so bad that’s why road accident has been a common matter here. People don’t know anything about the traffic signal or traffic light. Even some of the important and busy traffic points don’t have a traffic light. There are so many importances of traffic lights. Traffic light indicates drivers to slow down when they are going fast. In the busy street, it helps drivers to know when to stop and when to drive. It is very useful for passersby too.

If anyone is walking through the road and he needs to cross it, the traffic light can help them. Having a traffic light in every busy street is highly important. It could be a lifesaver for the passerby and even for the drivers. It guides the drivers when you need to stop and when you need to drive. It is a very useful thing for us. We all need to learn the proper use of traffic lights. It turns red the vehicles stop and people can walk and cross the street at that time. When it turns green people need to stop and the vehicles will move at that time.

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Add a method, remove a method, edit datasets, perceived importance of ict proficiency for teaching, learning, and career progression among physical education teachers in pampanga.

16 Jul 2024  ·  Kristine Joy D. Magallanes , Mark Brianne C. Carreon , Kristalyn C. Miclat , Niña Vina V. Salita , Gino A. Sumilhig , Raymart Christopher C. Guevarra , John Paul P. Miranda · Edit social preview

The integration of information and communication technology (ICT) has become increasingly vital across various educational fields, including physical education (PE). This study aimed to evaluate the proficiency levels of PE teachers in using various ICT applications and to examine the relationship between the perceived importance of ICT proficiency for teaching and learning, career advancement, and actual proficiency among Senior High school PE teachers in the municipality of Mexico, Pampanga. This study employed a quantitative descriptive approach. PE teachers from the municipality of Mexico, Pampanga, were selected as the respondents. This study used a two-part survey. The first section collected demographic data, such as age, gender, rank/position, and years of teaching experience, and the second section assessed ICT skill levels and the perceived importance of ICT in teaching, learning, and career progression. The results revealed that the majority of PE teachers had access to ICT resources. However, their proficiency levels with these tools varied significantly. Factors such as age, teaching experience, and professional position were found to significantly influence teachers proficiency and their perceptions of the benefits of ICT integration in PE instruction. The study provided a glimpse of the current state of ICT integration among Senior High school PE teachers in Mexico, Pampanga, Philippines. This also highlights areas of improvement. The study suggests that policymakers, administrators, and training program developers should focus on enhancing the ICT proficiency of PE teachers to improve teaching practices and student engagement. Enhancing the ICT proficiency of PE teachers is recommended to foster better teaching experiences, increase student engagement, and promote overall educational outcomes.

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• Published: 20 August 2024

Impact of a game-based interprofessional education program on medical students’ perceptions: a text network analysis using essays

• Young Gyu Kwon 1 ,
• Myeong Namgung 2 ,
• Song Hee Park 3 ,
• Mi Kyung Kim 3 , 4 ,
• Sun Jung Myung 5 ,
• Eun Kyung Eo 6 &
• Chan Woong Kim 1 , 2  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  898 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

The increasing complexity of the healthcare environment and the necessity of multidisciplinary teamwork have highlighted the importance of interprofessional education (IPE). IPE aims to enhance the quality of patient care through collaborative education involving various healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. This study sought to analyze how game-based IPE activities influence students’ perceptions and reflective thinking. It also aimed to identify the shifts in perception and effectiveness caused by this educational approach.

The study is based on a game-based IPE program conducted at University A, involving medical and nursing students in structured learning and team-based activities. Data were collected using essays written by the students after they had participated in IPE activities. Text network analysis was conducted by extracting key terms, performing centrality analysis, and visualizing topic modeling to identify changes in students’ perceptions and reflective thinking.

Keywords such as “patient,” “thought,” “group,” “doctor,” “nurse,” and “communication” played a crucial role in the network, indicating that students prioritized enhancing their communication and problem-solving skills within the educational environment. The topic modeling results identified three main topics, each demonstrating the positive influence of game-based collaborative activities, interprofessional perspectives, and interdisciplinary educational experiences on students. Topic 3 (interdisciplinary educational experience) acted as a significant mediator connecting Topic 1 (game-based collaborative activity experience) and Topic 2 (interprofessional perspectives).

This study demonstrates that game-based IPE activities are an effective educational approach for enhancing students’ team building skills, particularly communication and interprofessional perspectives. Based on these findings, future IPE programs should focus on creating collaborative learning environments, strengthening communication skills, and promoting interdisciplinary education. The findings provide essential insights for educational designers and medical educators to enhance the effectiveness of IPE programs. Future research should assess the long-term impacts of game-based IPE on clinical practice, patient outcomes, and participants’ professional development.

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With rapid changes in the healthcare environment and the advancement of systems, effective collaboration among various healthcare professionals is crucial to meet patients’ high expectations [ 1 ]. This underscores the growing importance of interprofessional education (IPE), which aims to develop the ability to collaborate efficiently as multidisciplinary teams [ 2 , 3 ]. IPE involves students from two or more healthcare professions learning about, from, and with each other through collaborative education. The primary objective of IPE is to assist healthcare professionals, including doctors, pharmacists, and nurses, in developing the competence to collaborate more effectively in multidisciplinary teams to enhance patient care [ 4 ]. Its history began in the early twentieth century and has evolved to include numerous healthcare professionals such as nurses, pharmacists, and dentists [ 5 ]. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that IPE provides highly collaborative teamwork experiences that improve job satisfaction and enhance access to and safety in patient care [ 6 ]. Recent studies have also shown that IPE is pivotal not only in promoting professional autonomy, understanding of professional roles, teamwork, and collaboration, but also in providing essential knowledge and skills for improving healthcare services [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ].

One innovative approach to enhancing IPE involves game-based learning, which integrates educational content with interactive gaming elements to create engaging and effective learning experiences. Game-based learning has been shown to enhance students’ motivation, participation, and retention of knowledge by providing a dynamic and immersive learning environment [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. In the context of IPE, these activities can simulate real-life clinical scenarios that require collaboration, communication, and problem-solving among diverse healthcare professionals [ 17 ]. This method allows students to practice and develop these critical skills in a safe and controlled setting, thereby preparing them for actual clinical practice [ 18 ].

Previous IPE studies involving students primarily used surveys, interviews, and participant observations to assess changes in students’ knowledge acquisition, collaboration, teamwork skills, and attitudes [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ]. While these approaches have provided valuable information for evaluating the effectiveness of IPE programs, they have limitations in terms of exploring students’ direct expressions and deep thinking. Recent research has started exploring game-based learning in IPE, emphasizing its potential to enhance collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills among healthcare students [ 24 , 25 ]. Game-based learning activities, such as serious games and simulations, offer engaging experiences that promote interprofessional collaboration and reflective thinking [ 17 ]. However, there is still a scarcity of research on students’ personal experiences, changing perceptions, and in-depth understanding of interprofessional collaboration through game-based learning. Addressing this gap can provide better relevance and context to the study of IPE.

Medical education literature has highlighted the importance of various educational strategies in enhancing reflective thinking skills [ 26 , 27 ]. Dewey defines reflective thinking as conscious thought in the problem-solving process, which can be considered as the active utilization of knowledge gained through experience [ 28 ]. Narrative materials, such as essays, are useful tools for gaining an in-depth understanding of students’ experiences and perceptions. Thus, analyzing reflective thinking through essays can help students better understand their learning experiences and improve their problem-solving abilities through effective collaboration across different disciplines [ 29 , 30 ].

This study aimed to analyze students’ perceptions of collaboration by examining essays they wrote after participating in game-based IPE activities, thereby providing evidence for the effectiveness of such education. The results of this study are expected to serve as foundational data to help design and implement more effective collaborative learning strategies for IPE programs.

Course design

The IPE program at a South Korean university targeted fifth-year medical and fourth-year nursing students to prepare them for clinical training. The course was divided into two phases: a six-day shadowing period and a four-day IPE activity period.

During the shadowing period, students observed various healthcare professionals in different clinical settings, including emergency rooms (ERs), ambulatory care, critical care, and outpatient environments. This phase emphasized understanding interprofessional roles and the importance of collaborative practice skills.

In the subsequent IPE activity period, students were grouped into teams of five or six, consisting of both medical and nursing students, to engage in team building exercises. These activities aimed to promote students’ collaboration, communication skills, mutual understanding in clinical settings. The activities during this phase were meticulously designed to develop essential soft skills through structured game-based exercises. These included the Marshmallow Challenge, which aimed to enhance understanding of team building dynamics; the Puzzle Game, which focused on defining roles and fostering teamwork to achieve a common objective; and the Message Game, which underscored the importance of clear and effective communication. Additional activities, such as the Drawing Shapes Game and the Drawing the Story Game, were designed to improve skills in accurate verbal description and to enhance understanding of the SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) communication protocol, respectively. Finally, the Board Game was specifically developed to reinforce systems thinking and to illustrate the need for interdisciplinary collaboration in addressing complex issues in a hospital. Table 1 outlines the key activities included in this period.

This study aimed to analyze essays written by students after participating in the IPE activities to assess their reflections and learning outcomes.

Research procedure

The fundamental premise of text network analysis is to extract keywords representing the core content from the literature [ 31 ]. This study focused on understanding students’ thoughts and perceptions by analyzing their essays. The research process comprised (1) data collection, (2) keyword selection and data processing, (3) core keyword extraction and network construction, (4) network connectivity and centrality analysis, and (5) topic modeling. This approach facilitated a nuanced understanding of the conceptual relationships within the text, yielding deeper insights into students’ reflective thinking and experiences with interprofessional collaboration, thereby aligning with the objectives of this study.

Data collection

Data were collected in 2021 after the IPE program. Of the 82 medical students who participated in the program, 77 voluntarily submitted essays, representing a 93.9% response rate from the entire cohort enrolled in the IPE program. The essays were collected after the completion of the entire program, capturing students’ reflections and feelings about the course. These essays were not intended for assessment or evaluation purposes but were written freely by students to express their thoughts and experiences regarding the program. The primary aim was to gather qualitative insights into how students perceived and internalized the IPE activities, which aligns with the study’s objective to understand the impact of game-based learning on developing interprofessional collaboration, communication, and team building skills. We focused on medical students’ essays to explore their specific perspectives and experiences within the IPE program, as these students often play crucial roles in multidisciplinary teams. Therefore, understanding their views can provide valuable insights for improving IPE programs and enhancing interprofessional collaboration in clinical practice [ 32 ].

Keyword selection and data pre-processing

The student essays were collected using MS Office Excel. Pre-processing involved an initial review using Excel’s Spell Check, followed by manual corrections to fix typographical errors. Morphological analysis was performed using Netminer 4.5.1.c (CYRAM), which automatically removed pronouns and adverbs, leaving only nouns. To extract the words, 25 designated words, 40 synonyms, and 321 excluded words were pre-registered. Designated words are terms that convey specific meanings when grouped [ 33 ]. In this study, terms such as “interprofessional education” and “Friday Night at the ER” were classified as such. Synonyms, a group of words that have similar meanings, were processed as a single term that can represent the common meaning of those words [ 34 ]. For instance, “Friday night ER,” “FNER,” and “Friday night in the ER” were extracted as “Friday Night at ER.” Words considered irrelevant to the current research focus or general words that did not contribute to meaningful analysis were excluded (e.g., “and,” “or,” “front,” “inside,” “during”). Three professors specializing in emergency medicine and one medical educator handled word extraction and refinement, and the final selection was reviewed by the entire research team.

The data analysis utilized was qualitative content analysis, focusing on both the identification and contextual usage of keywords. This approach involved the descriptive counting of keywords as well as an in-depth analysis of their usage within the essays. This rigorous process ensured that the keywords selected were relevant to the study’s focus on IPE and collaboration, providing both quantitative and qualitative insights into the students’ reflections and experiences.

Extraction of core keywords and network construction

Core keyword extraction was based on the term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) method. The frequency of word occurrences is expressed as “term frequency (TF),” which indicates how often a word appears within a document [ 35 ]. By contrast, “inverse document frequency (IDF)” is calculated using the logarithmic value of the inverse of document frequency [ 36 ]. The TF-IDF value is computed by multiplying TF by IDF. A high value indicates that a word is important in a specific document but rarely appears in others [ 37 ]. This method allows the assessment of the importance of words in documents. For network analysis, the 2-mode word-document network was converted into a 1-mode word-word network. The co-occurrence frequency was set to occur at least twice, and the word proximity (window size) was set to two, following previous studies on text network analysis [ 38 ].

Network connectivity and centrality analysis

Network size and density, as well as the average degree and distance at the node level, were identified to understand the overall characteristics of the network. Network size denotes the total number of nodes (keywords). Density measures the ratio of actual connections to possible connections, indicating network cohesion. The average degree reflects the average number of connections per node, while the average distance shows the typical number of steps between nodes, revealing the network’s connectivity and compactness [ 35 , 38 ]. Centrality analysis included degree, betweenness, and eigenvector centrality, whereas closeness centrality was excluded due to poor performance in lengthy texts [ 39 ]. Degree centrality measures how well a node is connected within a network, helping to identify keywords that play a central role in the network [ 40 ]. Betweenness centrality measures how frequently a node appears on the shortest path between other nodes, indicating how well it acts as an intermediary between two nodes [ 41 ]. Eigenvector centrality assesses the influence of a node by considering the importance of its neighboring nodes beyond the degree of connection [ 42 ]. This study extracted the top 30 words for each degree, betweenness, and eigenvector centrality. Finally, a spring map was used to visualize the keywords and their connection structures in the network.

Text network analysis was chosen because it provides a detailed understanding of relationships between concepts, unlike traditional methods that focus on theme frequency. It visualizes keyword interactions, highlighting central themes and their connections, offering insights into students’ reflections on IPE and their thought patterns.

Topic modeling

Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) is a statistical text-processing technique that clusters keywords based on their probabilities and distributions to infer topics [ 43 ]. In this study, keywords extracted from essays were compiled into a matrix for LDA. To determine the optimal number of topics, combinations of α = 0.01–0.03, β = 0.01–0.03, topic model = 3–8, and 1,000 iterations were tested. The optimal model was selected based on the coherence score (c_v), with the highest coherence score ensuring the validity and reliability of the inferred topics [ 44 , 45 , 46 ].

Key keywords

Table 2 presents the keywords derived from analyzing medical students’ essays selected through the TF and TF-IDF analyses. In the TF analysis, “thought” appeared most frequently (365 times), followed by “group” 359 times, “class” 322 times, and “game” 278 times. The top 20 keywords in TF-IDF included “patient,” “game,” “group,” and “person.” Keywords that appeared in both TF and TF-IDF analyses included “nursing school,” “nurse,” “game,” “hospital,” “person,” “mutual,” “communication,” “time,” “group,” “important,” “progress,” “puzzle,” “patient,” and “activity.” Comparing the keywords between TF and TF-IDF, new terms that emerged in TF-IDF included “IPE,” “room,” and “clinical practice.”

• Text network analysis

Network structure

In this study, a network was constructed based on a co-occurrence frequency of at least two words with word proximity (window size) set to two words. The resulting network comprised 1,218 nodes and 627 links. The network density was 0.012, with an average degree and distance of 3.919 and 3.447, respectively.

Centrality analysis

Table 3 lists the top 30 keywords according to degree, betweenness, and eigenvector centralities, providing insight into the overall network characteristics. The top three keywords across all three centrality analyses included “patient,” “thought,” “group,” “doctor,” “nurse,” and “communication.” The ranking and composition of the keywords were similar in both degree and betweenness centrality analyses. In the eigenvector results, “doctor,” “nurse,” and “communication” were ranked highest. When comparing the top 30 keywords from eigenvector centrality with those from degree and betweenness centrality, new terms such as “future,” “society,” and “need” emerged. These findings are presented in Fig.  1 , which illustrates the spring network map of centrality.

Spring network map of centrality. a  Degree centrality. b  Betweenness centrality. c  Eigenvector centrality

Topic modeling: selection of the number of topics

To determine the optimal number of topics, 54 combinations of options were tested, including α = 0.01–0.03, β = 0.01–0.03, topic models = 3–8, and 1,000 iterations. Three topics were identified.

In the topic modeling process, after reviewing the keywords and contents of the assigned original documents, the research team convened and named each topic to reflect the trend of the subject matter, as shown in Fig.  2 . Following prior research, the final topic model was visualized using a topic-keyword map displaying the top eight to thirteen words [ 44 ]. Topic 1, accounting for 17% of the total topics, includes keywords such as “group,” “game,” “puzzle,” “delivery,” and “activity.” This reflects the inclusion of group-based, game-centric activities in the IPE classes; hence, it was named “game-based collaborative activity experience.” Topic 2 comprises 23% of the topics centered around the thoughts of doctors and nurses about patients in clinical settings, with keywords including “doctor,” “thought,” “patient,” “hospital,” and “nurse.” It was thus named “interprofessional perspectives.” Topic 3, with the largest share at 60%, incorporates keywords such as “class,” “nursing school,” “thought,” “activity,” and “student.” It primarily addresses class activities involving nursing students, thus the term “interdisciplinary educational experience.” Visually examining the entire network of topic modeling indicates that Topic 1, “game-based collaborative activity experience,” and Topic 3, “interdisciplinary educational experience,” are connected through the keywords “person” and “activity.” Topic 2, “Interprofessional Perspectives,” and Topic 3, are linked by “thought” and “class.” In the network, Topic 3 plays a vital role in connecting Topics 1 and 2, as illustrated in Fig.  2 .

Semantic keywords of topic modeling

This study is the first attempt to demonstrate the educational impact of game-based IPE activities on fostering an interprofessional perspective, communication skills, and team building skills among healthcare professionals through a text network analysis of student essays. This distinguishes this study from previous studies. This approach can help students develop collaborative skills, thereby effectively addressing various challenges in clinical settings. The primary findings and implications of this study are as follows:

First, the keywords with the highest degree of centrality were “patient,” “thought,” and “group.” High-degree-centrality keywords play a central role in the entire network, suggesting that the overall program should be designed around these keywords. The keywords with high betweenness centrality were also “patient,” “thought,” and “group.” These keywords act as necessary connectors within the network, indicating that they are crucial for establishing communication channels between different professions and ensuring a smooth flow of information in medical education. Keywords with high eigenvector centrality included “doctor,” “nurse,” and “communication.” The prominence of keywords such as “doctor,” “nurse,” and “communication” in centrality measures signifies their strong connections to other important terms in the network. This highlights the pivotal role of doctors and nurses in collaborative practices and underscores the importance of communication skills in IPE programs. The central positioning of these keywords within the network emphasizes the need to prioritize interprofessional roles and communication competencies to enhance collaborative practices in clinical settings. These results align with previous findings emphasizing the importance of education in promoting effective collaboration and communication among healthcare professionals [ 47 ]. The centralities thus provide quantitative evidence supporting the critical roles and interactions that are essential for successful IPE.

The relevance of these keywords can be understood within the framework of the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) Core Competencies, which emphasize patient-centered care, reflective thinking, and effective communication. The central keywords align with IPEC’s domains: values/ethics for interprofessional practice, roles/responsibilities, interprofessional communication, and teams/teamwork [ 4 , 48 ]. For instance, “patient” and “group” correspond to the emphasis on patient-centered care and teamwork, while “thought” and “communication” are essential for reflective practice and effective interprofessional communication. Integrating IPE into medical education strengthens transparent and efficient teamwork across different specialties, minimizes errors in clinical decision-making, and improves patient outcomes. Consequently, medical schools should develop curricula that provide students with ample opportunities to collaborate with team members from various specialties [ 49 ].

Second, the topic modeling analysis indicated that Topic 1 provides a collaborative experience through group-based gaming activities in an IPE course. This aligns with previous research, indicating that game-based learning can enhance participants’ socialization and communication skills. Thornton Bacon et al. [ 50 ] and Sanko et al. [ 51 ] reported that students who participated in the Friday Night at Emergency Room (FNER) game demonstrated a statistically significant increase in systems thinking scores. In addition, Fusco et al. [ 52 ] confirmed that gameplay positively affected students’ systematic thinking, effective collaboration, and socialization skills. This suggests that game-based learning is useful for developing collaborative problem-solving skills and can be effectively integrated into various educational designs of IPE programs. Topic 2 highlights the significant focus on the perspectives of healthcare professionals in clinical environments. According to Bridges et al. [ 53 ] and Prentice et al. [ 54 ], IPE provides opportunities to develop a better understanding of roles and improve communication among healthcare team members. In this process, improving knowledge about one’s own roles and responsibilities as well as those of other professions can enhance teamwork between professionals [ 55 ]. This finding suggests that IPE programs can improve the quality of healthcare delivery by fostering mutual respect and understanding among different healthcare professionals. Topic 3 primarily addressed class activities for nursing students and included interdisciplinary educational experiences. These results show that game-based IPE activities are an effective educational method for enhancing interprofessional perspectives and communication skills, going beyond traditional lectures that simply deliver knowledge to students.

Additionally, Bjerkvik and Hilli [ 56 ] stated that expressing thoughts through writing facilitates the understanding of personal experiences. This enables learners to explore their emotions and attitudes, ultimately leading them to deeper self-understanding and professional growth. Consequently, this study analyzed students’ reflective thinking through topic modeling and presented evidence that game-based IPE activities are crucial in promoting learners’ reflective thinking and professional growth.

This study has several limitations. First, a limited group of students from a specific university participated in this study, which may have restricted the generalizability of the findings. Additional research is required to verify the results of this study across multiple student groups from various backgrounds and environments. Second, the research methodology relied on text analysis of student essays, focusing only on students’ subjective experiences and perceptions. To address this limitation, we used a rigorous coding scheme, inter-rater reliability checks, and TF-IDF for keyword extraction. Our methodology included keyword selection, data pre-processing, network construction, and LDA-based topic modeling, optimized with the coherence score (c_v). These steps ensured that the data analysis was both robust and reliable. Additionally, incorporating multiple methods for data analysis allowed us to cross-verify the findings and enhance the overall rigor of the study. Future research should integrate a range of methods, including interviews and surveys, to achieve a more comprehensive evaluation. Third, the effects of IPE programs on students’ collaborative competencies in clinical practice and healthcare settings is limited. Future research should explore the long-term impacts of game-based IPE on clinical practice, patient outcomes, and students’ readiness for clinical environments. Additionally, tracking the career progression and professional development of participants will help assess the sustained benefits of these educational interventions.

Conclusions

This study is the first to explore changes in reflective thinking and perceptions among students who participated in IPE programs. This demonstrates the positive effects of IPE on professional healthcare students. Specifically, through the analysis of degree, betweenness, and eigenvector centrality, we identified keywords such as “patient,” “thought,” “group,” “doctor,” “nurse,” and “communication” as crucial to interprofessional perspectives and communication among healthcare professionals. Topic modeling further underscores the importance of game-based learning, interprofessional perspectives, and interdisciplinary educational experiences.

These findings emphasize the need for innovative teaching methods in medical education and reaffirm the importance of promoting effective inter-professional perspective, communication skills and team building skills. Medical schools should strive to improve the design and implementation of their IPE program by incorporating students’ experiences and reflective insights. This will ultimately improve the quality of medical education. This study can serve as valuable foundational data for future research. Future studies should investigate the long-term effects of game-based IPE on clinical practice and patient outcomes. Research should also explore the impact of game-based IPE on participants’ career progression and professional development to assess sustained benefits. Additionally, future research could examine how different game-based learning activities influence specific interprofessional competencies, such as teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills, to identify the most effective approaches for IPE programs.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to ethical constraints but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

• Interprofessional education

Friday night at emergency room

Latent Dirichlet allocation

Term frequency

Term frequency-inverse document frequency

Inverse document frequency

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The authors sincerely thank all those who have contributed to this work through their support, insights, and encouragement.

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Study conception and design: YK, MN, CK. Data collection: YK, MN, CK. Data analysis and interpretation: YK, MN, SM, EE, CK. Drafting of the article: YK, MN, SP, MK. Critical revision of the article: YK, MN, SP, SM, EE, CK.

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Kwon, Y.G., Namgung, M., Park, S.H. et al. Impact of a game-based interprofessional education program on medical students’ perceptions: a text network analysis using essays. BMC Med Educ 24 , 898 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05893-2

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Received : 27 May 2024

Accepted : 12 August 2024

Published : 20 August 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05893-2

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