A Preliminary Perception Study among Youths on Road Traffic Accidents and Domino Theory

Abstract

The issue of road traffic accidents has become a major concern to Malaysia and it is now also being regarded as one of the most serious social problems. Thus, this study has been undertaken as a preliminary investigation to examine whether the perceptions of youths on the causation and risk management of road traffic accidents conform to domino theory. A self-administered survey questionnaire was used to gather data from youths who were Universiti Utara Malaysia students. Frequency counts and rank order analysis were used to analyse the data collected. The major findings of this study show that the perceptions of the youths participated in this study conform to domino theory. However, the “imbalanced” perceptions of the youths suggest that domino theory alone is not adequate to explain road traffic accidents. Speeding, inattention and queue jumping are the three main risky driving behaviours that the youths participated in this study perceived to be potentially highly likely in leading to road traffic accidents. Among a list of four risk management measures for road traffic accidents intended to change the road users’ behaviours in order to attain road safety, the youths perceived that imposing severe punishment is the most effective measure, then it is followed by enforcement activities – for which overt enforcement activities are perceived to be more effective than covert enforcement activities, and road safety campaign or education is perceived to be the least effective measure. The potential use of the findings of this study has also been discussed. As this study is a preliminary investigation, further and more in-depth studies about road traffic accidents and other accident theories (or models) are warranted.