Awareness Of Driving Safety Measures In General Population Visiting Tertiary Care Hospital

BACKGROUND:Road traffic accident is a preventable global disaster. In developing countries, the existing road safety policies are ineffective in preventing casualties, mainly because of lack of knowledge regarding the same in the general population. The early assessment of awareness of driving safety measures in general population will thus go a long way to help in reducing existing high fatalities. MATERIALAND METHODS: Aclose ended questionnaire based, cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 participants of age 16 years and above with a valid driving license to assess the awareness regarding driving safety measures. The data was collected and analyzed for number, percentage, mean, standard deviation, t test and Chi-square test. RESULTS: 80.8% of the urban population and 60.5% of the rural population were aware of the legal age for driving vehicles. Majority of the participants were aware regarding wearing helmets while driving. Use of seatbelt and prohibition of alcohol intake while driving was comparatively less in rural population. Awareness of prohibition of use of mobile phone while driving and sign of speed limit was observed in 2/3rd of the population. Less than half of the rural population was unaware of the basic traffic signs like stop, no parking, no horn, school ahead, and one way. CONCLUSION:Awareness regarding driving safety measures in general population was comparatively less among rural population than urban. Traffic awareness campaigns in hospitals in association with Regional Transport Office would be one of the beneficial measures to minimize fatalities arising due to lack of knowledge of safe driving measures.