Edmund King, AA president, presented a new paper titled ‘Two Tribes’ at the National Road Safety Conference 2012.
In his presentation, the full title of which is ‘Two Tribes? What drivers think about other road users?’, he looked at motorists’ perceptions of vulnerable road users such as cyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists. Based on a survey of 20,000 drivers, the presentation also offered an insight into the ‘mind of the motorist’ and explored how road users can co-exist safely on our highways.
Mr King told delegates that motorists are most likely to feel angry with other car drivers (45%), and that in terms of the hierarchy of road rage, car drivers are followed by the white van men (18%) as the most annoying, then cyclists (13%) and then motorcyclists (6%).
Edmund King said: “We really must get past this dangerous ‘them and us’ mentality that sours interactions between different groups (and even sub-groups) of road users – be they cyclists, motorcyclists or drivers of vehicles large or small.
“A tribal mentality on the roads just fosters road rage which is not good for your blood pressure or road safety. Drivers need to remember that other road users are also human beings with equal rights to share the roads.
“The AA Charitable Trust offers free driver training via our Drive Smart and Drive Confident courses in order to retrain drivers at risk and break down some of these barriers.”
Let us know how you think the conference is going on Twitter by using the hashtag #roadsafetyconference2012
That’s quite a long #… I’ve been using #RSGB! Mr King’s presentation made some excellent points though and brought home just how absurd some people’s attitude to other roads users is.
Dave, Canary Wharf
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