Traffic congestion is now the top concern among UK motorists, overtaking other drivers on mobile phones.
However people checking social media on the move is still seen as the biggest risk to personal safety.
These are the main findings of IAM RoadSmart’s eagerly awaited fourth annual Safety Culture Survey.
Each year since 2015 IAM RoadSmart, the UK’s biggest road safety charity, surveys over 2,000 drivers about their worries, fears and attitudes. For the past two years safety concerns around other drivers using hand-held mobile phones has topped the list – but this year there is a new top worry.
More than three-quarters (76%) of those surveyed say that congestion is a bigger problem than they experienced three years ago. Some 73% of those surveyed still say mobile phone usage is a problem across the same period, but this is down from 80% who said this last year. The third biggest concern was aggressive drivers, which more than a third (68%) of people said was a bigger problem than in 2015. Worries between the sexes are broadly similar; however women are more likely to find drink-driving and speeding a greater concern, while men are more worried about aggressive cyclists. However when asked what motorists feel is ‘a serious threat’ to their safety while driving, drivers checking or updating their social media or texting outstrips other worries to top the charts, with 93% of those surveyed saying this. Other major concerns were people driving after using illegal drugs (91%), people driving after drinking alcohol (90%), drivers speeding on residential streets (89%), drivers talking on mobile phones (89%) and drivers ignoring red lights (88%). | New Jaguar Land Rover technology using Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2X) connects cars to traffic lights so drivers can avoid getting stuck at red and help free up traffic flow in cities. The world’s first traffic lights were installed exactly 150 years ago outside the Houses of Parliament in London. Since then drivers around the globe have spent billions of hours waiting for green. However with Jaguar Land Rover’s latest tech, their days could be numbered. The Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory (GLOSA) system allows cars to “talk” to traffic lights and inform the driver the speed they should drive as they approach junctions or signals. |
Drivers’ attitudes towards speeding and using hand-free mobile phones showed how some illegal and distracting habits are being seen as acceptable by some. Almost half (48%) thought driving 10mph over the limit on a motorway was acceptable, while some 45% still think it is alright to talk on a hands-free mobile phone.
In other worrying findings, slightly less than a quarter (23%) are willing to drive at five miles an hour over the limit in a residential street. Some would also drive without a seatbelt (11%) and drive at five miles an hour over the limit near a school (9%).