Abstract:

Traffic accidents cause important losses on the social and economics structure of countries. While economic losses are able to be compensated in a short time, it isn’t possible to compensate social and communal losses. This study tackles with not the economic aspect of traffic accidents but the social dimension, evaluates the causes of the traffic accidents with respect to views of individuals on traffic and aims to measure the levels of awareness of individuals about traffic. To achieve these goals, a group of 506 people were surveyed in Uşak province and the acquired data were analyzed via one-way ANOVA test in SPSS 16 program. According to the analysis results, drivers and pedestrians are considered to have significant flaws in traffic accidents. But alongside this thought, the idea that traffic accidents are caused by the road having technical and physical problems has come to the fore. This results present a valid motive for the established approach “Vision Zero” , being practised in Sweden, to be adopted in Turkey. When the level of awareness about traffic is examined, it is seen that individuals generally have got inadequate information related traffic rules and traffic authorities. Besides, the fact that individuals are inadequate in terms of courtesy and respect in traffic and that more serious efforts on traffic education is needed to be spent come out as the important findings of this study. The findings of this study can be thought as a directive tool to the policy makers.

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