Varning for Bakhjulsstyrning.(Danger rear wheel steering.) : Lennart Strandberg. National board of occupational safety and health, accident reseach section, Solna, Sweden, 1981.28 pp. (Swedish with english summary.)
- Book ID
- 102620301
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1981
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 92 KB
- Volume
- 13
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0001-4575
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
countermeasure. Accordingly, a wide variety of measures have been introduced in Canada to promote the use of seatbelts by the motoring public. These efforts have ranged from information and/or educational approaches to legislation mandating the use of seatbelts. This report examines the effectiveness of these efforts to increase the frequency of seatbelt wearing in Canada and, particularly, the extent to which such efforts have been associated with reductions in injuries and deaths.
Based upon a critical appraisal of published studies documenting the Canadian experience to date, it is concluded that the loss-reductions associated with efforts to increase seatbelt wearing rates in Canada have been extremely disappointing. Reductions in injuries and deaths from various measures to promote increased wearing of seatbelts have consistently fallen short of initial expectations. In one respect this apparent failure may be attributable to the overlyoptimistic expectations that preceded efforts to increase wearing rates. A more important consideration, however, has been the inability to achieve and to maintain consistently high rates of seatbelt usage among the Canadian motoring public. This latter aspect is central, inasmuch as it is a definitional truism that seatbelts are of no utility if they are not worn. Unfortunately, there is ample research documenting the failure of efforts to achieve high rates of belt usage, there is virtually no research-based evidence regarding why these efforts have been ineffective.
The authors note that, "There is a temptation to conclude from a review of these studies that efforts to promote behavioural change are necessarily destined to fail and to recommend that such efforts should be abandoned," but argue thai "such a conclusion would be both erroneous and dangerous." The authors contend that "the failure of these efforts suggests only that the factors underlying current public resistance to seatbelt usage are not well understood. There is ample evidence that safety is not irrelevant to the public, and that the public is both supportive of and responsive to measures that it perceives to be in its own best interests. Accordingly, public resistance to seatbelt usage must be understood before it can be overcome through the introduction of informational, educational or legislated programs." In the opinion of the authors that is the area of highest priority for research, and "the conduct of such research is essential if seatbelts are to become a viable loss-reduction mechanism."