2019 ‘UAE Year of Tolerance’ - How Tolerant are UAE Motorists? (Research Study)

• A caring attitude and good behavior are the foundation of a positive road safety culture
  
• Are UAE motorists tolerant to each other?
  
• Are UAE motorists prone to road rage?
• Which dimensions of tolerance and road rage do we experience in the UAE?
  
• ‘1st-ever’ UAE behavior research for road tolerance and road rage
  

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 17 November 2019, (AETOSWire) : 2019 marks the ‘UAE Year of Tolerance’ and this begs the question of how tolerant are we to each other on UAE’s roads? Obviously, a caring attitude is the foundation of a good road safety culture and one dimension of it is how tolerant motorists are to each other. This ‘first-ever’ behavior research study tries to shed light on motorists’ tolerance when it comes to true mistakes of others, deliberate bullying behavior, and what makes us fall into road rage.

"The idea of a positive road culture based on tolerance, empathy and ethics is very close to our hearts as the deepest-rooted value of our company is to practice ethically," said Sudharsan Narasimhan, Chief Underwriting Officer of Noor Takaful | Ethical Insurance. "We've partnered with RoadSafetyUAE to research, evaluate and analyze this very subject as this is especially relevant with 2019, the Year of Tolerance."

Thomas Edelmann, Founder & Managing Director of RoadSafetyUAE states: “We wanted to understand how tolerant UAE motorists are to each other in the case of true mistakes and in the case of deliberate acts of bullying, but also how prone we are to road rage and in which situations we are losing our temper. In order to craft the right communication and engagement initiatives to raise awareness and consequently better the behavior on the roads, we need to understand the motivators for the behavior we experience on the roads. Hence, this piece of research will add a lot of value in understanding.”

With regards to UAE motorists’ tolerance the following can be observed:

• 50% of respondents think that road users are tolerant to each other in general, however the level of tolerance is only
• 45% in case of true mistakes of others, and it further drops to
• 35% in case of deliberate and egoistic acts like reckless driving, bullying, jumping the queue, tailgating and similar.

Opposite to tolerance, UAE motorists are driven into road rage by reckless driving of others:

• 73% of respondents state to ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ fall into road rage themselves, and      
• 63% witness others to ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ fall into road rage.
• 58% observe rude retaliating driving or stopping/blocking traffic as an act of road rage,
• 36% witness foul gestures and
• 24% foul language.

“We want to influence UAE motorists to be respectful and ethical on the roads through our #SafeSunday campaign,” said Frederick Bisbjerg, Chief Digital Acceleration Officer, Noor Takaful | Ethical Insurance. “Road rage often escalates from one driver to the other. In reflection of the essence of 2019, ‘Year of Tolerance’ we would like to urge motorists to be tolerant, empathetic and compassionate towards each other to help make our roads safer.”

The study was commissioned by Noor Takaful and RoadSafetyUAE and was conducted by YouGov in October 2019, based on the views of a representative sample of 1,000 UAE residents.

The details of the UAE Road Safety Monitor can be found in the ‘featured’ section on: http://www.roadsafetyuae.com/statistics.