Traffic Safety Climate: Attitudes towards Traffic Safety of Lithuanian and Turkish Young Drivers

The aim of this paper is to compare factorial structure of Traffic Climate Scale in two cultures: Lithuanian and Turkish. 319 Lithuanian and 311 Turkish young drivers participated in the study on voluntary basis. Traffic Climate Scale was used to measure drivers' attitudes and perceptions about traffic safety. The results indicated different structure of Traffic Climate Scale for Turkish and Lithuanian drivers. Lithuanian Traffic Climate Scale consisted of four factors: internal requirements, emotional demands - unpredictableness, functionality, emotional demands - stressfulness. Four factors described traffic climate in Turkish sample as well: internal requirements + emotional demands, functionality, emotional demands - mobility and excitement, fatalism. Results in Turkish and Lithuanian samples also differed from factorial structure obtained previously in Germay. It could be presumed that differences in the structure of traffic safety climate might explain different prevalence in accident rates and risky driving. Further investigations in a field of traffic safety climate and its relation with the behaviour on the road are needed