The Effect of Culture on Gender Differences in Driver Risk Behavior through Comparative Analysis of 32 Countries
Marie-Axelle Granié, Chloé Thévenet, Florent Varet, Myriam Evennou, Noureddine Oulid-Azouz, Craig Lyon, Uta Meesmann, Robyn D. Robertson, Katrien Torfs, Ward G. M. Vanlaar, Heather Woods-Fry, Wouter Van den Berghe · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · 2021
The purpose of the paper is to study the effect of culture on gender differences in accidental risk behaviours. The ESRA2018 database, comprising 25,459 drivers (53% male) surveyed by an online questionnaire in 32 countries, was used to observe gender and regional differences (Africa5, AsiaOceania5, Europa20, NorthAmerica2) in reported behaviour, personal and social acceptability of 4 violations: drinking and driving, speeding, not wearing a seatbelt and phone while driving. The results show that gender differences are small but significant and vary across cultures with men valuing accidental risk behaviours more than women do in all regions observed. In addition, speeding appears to be the most widespread and globally accepted of the four violations tested for both men and women. Results are discussed in terms of origin of gender differences and of factors explaining lack of compliance with speed limitation. Theses results could be useful to better tailor road safety campaigns and education.