Researcher: R. Quinn Brackett, Ph.D., Katie Womack and Bernie Fette

Sponsor: Center for Transportation Safety

A growing number of safety professionals agree that if we are limited to engineering and enforcement countermeasures, further improvements in roadway safety will be incremental at best. To make truly meaningful improvements will require changing the way we think about driving – to change our traffic safety culture. CTS researchers conducted a survey to provide baseline information on Texans’ opinions on both safety conditions and laws that govern roadway safety. Survey findings suggest that more than one third of Texans feel less safe while traveling than they did five years ago. More than three fourths of survey participants believed that cell phone use and texting while driving are considerably bigger problems than they were five years ago, and a majority would support laws to ban those activities. Researchers plan to repeat the survey each year to track changes in attitudes and opinions.

For more information contact Bernie Fette.