Laiou A., Theofilatos A., Yannis G., Meesmann U., Torfs K., Trotta M., “Road Users’ Safety Attitudes towards Speeding”, Proceedings of the Road Safety & Simulation International Conference 2017, The Hague, 17-19 October 2017.

Speeding has been recognised as the number one road safety problem. The objective of this paper is to present the key findings on road users’ attitudes towards speeding as identified within the ESRA project and the relevant recommendations formulated based on these findings. The ESRA project is a joint initiative of research organisations and road safety institutes in 17 European countries aiming at collecting comparable (inter)national data on road users’ opinions, attitudes and behaviour with respect to road traffic risks. The survey covered a range of subjects, including the attitudes towards unsafe traffic behaviour, self-declared (unsafe) behaviour in traffic and support for road safety policy measures. Data from more than 17,000 road users were collected. Attitudes and opinions of road users in European countries on speeding are described and compared amongst countries as well as with regard to demographic characteristics. The speeding aspects analysed concern the acceptability of unsafe traffic behaviour related to speeding, the self-declared behaviour in traffic, attitudes towards unsafe traffic behaviour, support for road safety policy measures and the reported police checks and perceived likelihood of getting caught for speeding. All the reported attitudes related to speeding depend on the gender with more males than females declaring that they have driven faster than the speed limit. Age increase is generally associated with a decrease in the tendency to violate the speed limit. The majority of people who accept driving over the speed limit do not believe that the speed limits are set at acceptable levels. Based on the findings of the ESRA survey, key recommendations on the subject of speeding were formulated at three different levels namely policy recommendations at European level, specific policy recommendations at national/regional level and specific recommendations to particular stakeholders such as non-governmental organizations, private concessionaire companies, research organisations and vehicle manufacturers.