UAE Motorists Behavior Must Match Authorities’ Efforts – ‘UAE Road Safety Monitor’ (7th cycle)

• 7th cycle of the unique perception study of UAE motorists
  
• Dangerous driving is on the rise
• Reversal of long-term positive trend
• Only positives: Infrastructure improves as well as overall driving enjoyment
  

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 8th October 2018, (AETOSWire) : The 7th cycle of the unique ‘UAE Road Safety Monitor’ once more underlines the authorities’ efforts to further improve the road infrastructure, but it also delivers a trend reversal for UAE’s road safety perception. Erasing long term positive trends, most of the researched dimensions of reckless driving increase in this last survey wave, conducted in September 2018.

Frederik Bisbjerg, Executive Vice President Retail i-Insured states: “The long-term ‘UAE Road Safety Monitor’, which i-Insured started jointly with RoadSafetyUAE in 2015 links the perception of UAE motorists to the main causes of road accidents. Perception counts and we have seen a strong correlation between the research findings and the recorded number of accidents and fatalities. Hence, this unique perception study provides valuable feedback about the impact of the involved stakeholders’ efforts aimed at increasing road safety.”

Thomas Edelmann, Managing Director of RoadSafetyUAE adds: “We applaud the authorities’ continued efforts in further improving the road infrastructure, but unfortunately, we see reversals in all dimensions of reckless driving, namely in distracted driving, lane swerving, speeding, and tailgating. Probably, as a result of these observed increases, the commute times went up. In contrast, we observe positive trends for further improved infrastructure and overall driving enjoyment.”

“It seems that we cannot take the foot off the pedal in terms of further educating UAE motorists about safe driving! On the one hand we enjoy further improved traffic infrastructure which leads to greater driving enjoyment, but on the other hand UAE motorists must realize their increasing misbehavior and we must improve our driving manners! We must be cognizant of the fact that ultimately our behavior as responsible road users is the main ingredient to make our roads safer! It is all up to us!”, he adds.

The highlights of the 7th cycle of the ‘UAE Road Safety Monitor’:

UAE motorists witness these perception trends (‘strongly agree’ / ‘agree’) during the last 6 months (values are percentage points trends):

• Infrastructure improvement: +15%
• Overall driving enjoyment: +13%
• Dangerous driving overall: +2%
  • Lane Swerving: +13%
  • Distracted driving: +13%
  • Speeding: +9%
  • Tailgating: +8%
  • Involved in a collision: +3%
    
• Commute times: +13%

The study was commissioned by i-Insured and RoadSafetyUAE and was conducted by YouGov in September 2018, based on the views of a representative sample of 1,016 UAE residents.

The details of the UAE Road Safety Monitor can be found in the ‘featured’ section on: http://www.roadsafety.qic-insured.com/home. The study will be repeated every six months with the next scheduled release in mid Q1/2019.