Impact of road safety education on commercial drivers’ knowledge and behaviour towards road traffic codes and safety driving in Delta State

Abstract

The propensity of increase in road traffic accidents and injuries poses a serious public health problem for Nigeria as a low-income country. Without sustained action, road traffic crashes may become one of the major cause of death. Consequently, this study seeks to assess the impact of road safety education of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) on commercial drivers’ knowledge and behaviour towards road traffic codes and safety driving. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised all commercial drivers in Delta State. A sample size of 320 respondents was selected for the study using stratified and simple random sampling techniques. Three research hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The Drivers’ Road Safety Knowledge and Attitudinal Questionnaire (DRSKAQ) was used to collect relevant data. The data were analysed using Analysis of Variance and Multiple Regression. It was found out that the FRSC education programme influence commercial drivers’ behaviour towards road traffic codes and safety driving. In addition, a joint impact of commercial drivers’ educational background, duration of learning road safety, behaviour and knowledge was observed on the attitude towards road safety education programme. But, the safety education programme had no influence on drivers’ knowledge of road traffic codes and safety driving. It was recommended that other non-governmental agencies should support the FRSC in giving intermittent road safety education programmes to commercial drivers.

Keywords: Road Safety Education, Attitude, Federal Road Safety Commission, Behaviour Driver Education