This study demonstrated the fact that, the driving habits of the local populace can ... Keywords: Seat belt utilization, Urban and rural roads, Passenger and driver ...
INVESTIGATION OF THE SEAT BELT USAGE RATES FOR THE RURAL AND URBAN ROADS WITHIN CITY LIMITS: A CASE OF GÜMÜŞHANE METİN MUTLU AYDIN, MEHMET SİNAN YILDIRIM, ÜMİT GÖKKUŞ Metin Mutlu Aydın, Res. Assistant, Akdeniz University, Mehmet Sinan Yıldırım, Res. Assistant, Manisa Celal Bayar University, Ümit Gökkuş, Prof. Dr., Manisa Celal Bayar University,
Abstract Seat belt utilization is an important countermeasure for eliminating the risks of injuries and deaths for traffic accidents. In Turkey, unfortunately the utilization of the seat belt is relatively lower than the average European and North America countries. In literature, there exist extensive efforts to clarify the seat belt utilization rates and examine the factor influencing the seat belt usage rates within the community. Apart from other studies, this study tries to investigate the spatial seat belt usage rates within the city limits considering the road classes (urban or rural roads). The recordings were made by road side investigation for six locations (three urban streets and three ring road locations). For sustaining a homogeneity within the sampling population, only the cars with the local plate numbers were considered in the scope of this study. The results clarified that, the seat belt usage rates were slightly higher in the rural road among the local populace drivers probably due to the regular traffic control points and higher risk of encountering traffic penalties. This study demonstrated the fact that, the driving habits of the local populace can easily be influenced by local law practices and regulations. Keywords: Seat belt utilization, Urban and rural roads, Passenger and driver safety, Traffic accidents. Introduction Today, people who use the transportation systems significantly increased with the economic and social developments of countries. This phenomena unfortunately resulted several problems related with the increased stresses on the transportation systems in which the most principal ones are traffic congestion and safety issues. In parallel with the world, Turkey’s population is in an increasing trend and also the immigration from the rural areas to the metropolitan centers such as Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara cities, triggered the population boost in these cities. Also the technological advances considered as a direct factor increasing the total number of vehicles in the traffic. These issues directly or indirectly worsened the traffic related problems of Turkey (Karacasu and Bilgiç, 2000). Especially, preventing the road accidents and hindering the corresponding risks of life and economic loses was turned to be a principal research area for many researchers. Even many car producer firms, stressed the importance of safety of their products and involved in a continuous progress of improving the safety of their products in manner of safety equipment and systems. Despite the latest improvements of the vehicles, road accidents are still an important threat causing deathes and injuries for drivers and pedestrians because of the driver related aspects; traffic rule violations and unsafe driving habits. With investigating the road accidents rates through the years, no significant decrease for the deathes and injuries were observed. For an instance, for the period of 30 years between 1972 and 2001, a total death toll of 162.215 and 2.004.321 injuries were observed for 4.712.915 recorded road accidents (Koçak and Aktaş, 2004). Also by considering the ten year period between the years of 2000 and 2009, 45.188 death tolls and 1.519.737 injuries were reported for 45.188 road accidents in Turkey (TDB, 2010). When the statistics for 2010-2015 were examined, 26.369 people died and 7.581.958 people were injured in the 7.349.673 cases (TUIK, 2015). In the light of these studies, it can be concluded that the road traffic accidents were increased through years. This phenomena is questionable as if the driver characteristics, conscious and speedy driving habits tend to increase the traffic accident rates. With parallel to the numbers of traffic accidents, the number of injured passengers also increased through the years. In this point, one can argue that, the less practices of seat belt usage rates among the vehicle drivers resulted the corresponding deaths and injuries. For distinguishing the seat belt usage habits of the vehicle drivers, this study
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tried to observe the seat belt usage habits in the Gümüşhane city of Turkey by also considering the differences between the urban and rural roads of the same city Literature Review Şimşekoğlu and Lajunen (2005) measured the usage rate of the seat belt of the drivers in Ankara in order to determine the seat belt usage rate of the drivers in Turkey. It has been found out from the results that, 75 % of the automobile drivers and front seat passengers have not used the seat belts in Ankara city. It has been observed that 35 % of females and 19 % of males put on their seat belts and it was concluded that, female drivers and front seat passengers were more careful to use their seat belts than men. The study also showed that the use of seat belts increased as the age progressed such that, 24 % of driver and front seat passengers under the age of 30 and 25 % of those between the ages of 30-50 are using seat belts. This ratio was found to be 30 % in those over 50 years old. According to the study, both driver and front seat passengers more frequently used seat belts in intercity roads compared with the urban roads. Thirty-five percent of the drivers stated that they only wear seat belts in intercity roads, while the percentage of those who use the belts in the city is 19 %. Similarly, the use of seat belts among front seat passengers is 33 % for intercity routes and 14 % for urban routes. A survey study was practiced considering 221 people from different ages and profession, and among the reasons for not using the seat belts in the survey were short distance and low speed, disbelief for using the seat belt, uncomfortable belt usage and the presence of airbag in the car. The study also found that using a seat belt was also vital for rear seat occupants as important as front seat occupants because a rear seat passenger who does not use a seatbelt has been found to have increased the likelihood of dying by colliding with occupants in the front seat during an accident. In another study, the applicability of the "Vision Zero - Zero Death" policy, which was presented to the Swedish Parliament in 1996 and accepted as a national transport policy by the Parliament in 1997, was investigated in order to completely eliminate deaths in traffic accidents in Sweden (Işıldar, 2004). The program's components to ensure traffic safety are summarized as below: Special safety measures in hazardous roads, Better road safety in residential areas, Highlighting the responsibilities of road users, Ensuring safer conditions for cyclists, Quality assurance for transport services, compulsory use of winter tires, more effective use of Swedish technology, More responsibilities to those who design road traffic systems, Control of traffic offenses, contribution of voluntary organizations, Alternative methods for financing new roads. The "Traffic Safety Project" report has been prepared by SweRoad (Swedish National Road Consulting AB), a Swedish consultancy organization, on the current situation in Turkey and the necessary works for traffic safety for 10 years starting from 2002. According to this report, the projects that must be passed on for the application of “Zero Death” policy to Turkey are as below: Construction of concrete roads, Increasing the contribution of voluntary organizations, Establishing necessary mechanisms for controlling the traffic violation, Increasing the responsibilities for the designers and the planners of the road traffic infrastructures, Improving the quality and safety fort the public transport systems, Assuring the safe traffic conditions for bike and motorcycle drivers, Stressing the responsibilities of the road users (drivers, passengers and pedestrians), Providing better road safety conditions for the urban locations. According to this report, if necessary measures are not taken, in 2011, 1.185.000 traffic accidents were expected in Turkey and it is expected that 9.200 people would lose their lives in these accidents while 193.000 people were expected to be injured. When the accident statistics of 2011 were examined, it was determined that 1.228.928 traffic accidents occurred and 3.835 people lost their lives and 238.074 people were injured as a result of these accidents. These results show that the measures taken according to this report helped to reduce the number of casualties but
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accident and injury counts are increased beyond the expected values. Effective measures to reduce traffic accidents have been tried to be put forward in the Traffic Council Meeting of Turkey considering the traffic accidents and seat belts usage in 2004 (Ege, 2004). In the meeting, utilization of modern and safer vehicles, increasing the use of seat belts and child seats, increasing the percentage of car in traffic which are providing passenger and side airbags, increasing the use of Anti-lock Braking Systems in vehicles and to keeping the headlights open during daytime were prosed as effective measures. In another study examining traffic accidents, it was found that despite the increase in the numbers of vehicles and drivers compared to the past years, there was a moderate increase in injury rates and a slight increase in the mortality rates, but these rates were higher than in the foreign countries (Abay and Uslu, 2001). It is stated that the main causes of this are speedy driving, lack of traffic education in schools, and lack of widespread usage of seat belts. It is seen in the literature review that traffic accidents have been on the agenda of Turkey for many years, but until now no permanent solution has been found and no further steps have been taken on traffic safety. Sweden, which is many times smaller than Turkey in terms of vehicle and population, has determined a national policy to reduce the death and injury rate equivalent to that of a single province of Turkey and has pursued this policy. Unfortunately, such a policy for Turkey has not been determined yet. Technical Information about the Seat Belt While the working mechanism of the seat belt is widely known in literature, there is no exact definition for the seat belt. Many sources for the seat belt have almost identical definitions. These definitions can be summarized in two ways as below: Wide strips stretched between the fixed points of the vehicle for reducing the risk of death and injury in a traffic accident by directing the effect of the throwing and impact that can occur during the traffic accident impact to the stronger regions of the body (EGM, 1999). The "seat belt" or other phrase "safety belt" is a link that prevents a car's passenger from crashing into the car or throwing it out of the car if a collision occurs (Wikipedia, 2010). As seen above, seat belt is a device that prevent the possible trauma by distributing the collision energy to the parts of the chest and the hip, which are the durable areas of the body, preventing the driver from crashing against hard objects such as panel, glass, steering and holding the driver in his seat during the collision. The basic idea of a seat belt is very simple. When the car stops suddenly, it prevents the driver from jumping out of the car or hitting the front panel of the car. However, the basic idea of the seatbelt also rests on the fact that the passengers continue to move and stop in a harsh manner by the inner part of the vehicle during sudden stopping of the vehicle during an accident. From the middle of the 1800's when the seat belt first began to be used in vehicles to the daytime, there have been many researches and tests on its protective features and durability of the seat belts. According to the results of these tests and tests, many types of seat belts have been produced and used by automobile companies. According to the number of points on which the vehicle is mounted and according to the working principles, the seat belt is divided into four groups as follows: Two point seat belts (waist type-shoulder type), Three-point seat belt, Five point seat belts, Seat belt with six spots, The most widely used type in automobiles is the three pointed seat belt. This belt type, which resembles waist and belt, has only one elongated piece. Both the three pointed and waist type belts distribute the energy of the body moving during a collision on the chest, shoulders and hips. Swedish Nils BOHLIN, who started working as a security engineer in the Volvo factory in 1958, examined the body's effect and conditions of use of seat belts during high speed crashes. In 1959, Bohlin produced a three-point seat belt, which has resulted the elimination of thousands of deaths and injuries each year (Tingvall and Haworth, 2000). In the same year, the Swedish car company Volvo started to use three points of seat belts in its vehicles (See Figure 1). In the 1970s, three front-seat seat belts were used in the front seats, while in the rear seat two-point seat belts were used. With the widespread backlash and paralysis situations, in almost all developed countries, all of the seats in the vehicle are equipped with three pointed seat belts (Tingvall and Haworth, 2000).
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Figure 1. The three-point attached seat belt invented by Nils Bohlin was first used in the cars with the Volvo brand (http://driving.ca/volvo/auto-news/news/a-not-so-brief-history-of-the-seatbelt). Sıte Selection and Data Collection In contrary with the studies on the use of seat belts in large cities, in the scope of the study, Gümüşhane city center and entrance-exit routes were selected on Trabzon-Erzurum-Tabriz (Silk Road) to reflect the situation in small-scale cities. Gümüşhane province is located in the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey and it has a total area of 6.575 square kilometers. Gümüşhane is encircled with Bayburt at the east, Giresun at the west, Trabzon at the north and Erzincan at the south. The average altitude at sea level is 1210 meters. According to the population data of 2015, the population of Gümüşhane was determined as 53.074 (TÜİK, 2015). According to the statistics of 2015, the total number of vehicles registered to Gümüşhane province was obtained as given in Table 1 (TUIK, 2015). Table 1. The total number of vehicles registered to Gümüşhane province (2015). Cars Minibuses Buses Trucks Articulated Trucks. Motocycle Tractor Total 8.831 1.117 197 4.797 1.339 1.252 3.352 20.885 Within the scope of the study, the observation data were gathered on 10 different days by a research group of five people from Gümüşhane City center and the ring roads. The location information of the points where the data were collected are shown in Figure 2, and the detailed photographs of these points are shown in Figure 3.
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Gümüşhane City
Figure 2. Locations of the observation points.
a-) Obs. Point 1: Rural road
c-) Obs. Point 3: Urban road
b-) Obs. Point 2: Urban road
d-) Obs. Point 4: Urban road
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e-) Obs Point 5: Rural Road Figure 3. Views of the observations points for gathering of the observation data. In the scope of the study, observations were made at five different points (3 urban and 2 rural locations) for cars, minibuses, buses, truck / truck and van types of vehicles. The data were collected in three different groups for ease of comparison. These groups were; car drivers, bus and minibus drivers, trucks, vans and articulated truck drivers. The number of drivers using and not using seat belts from the groups are given in Table 2. Table 2. Urban and rural seat belt usage of different driver groups. Seat Belt Usage Driver Profile Location Used Not Used Total ( ∑ ) Urban Road 203 945 1148 Car Drivers Rural Road 201 550 751 Total ( ∑ ) 404 1495 1899 Urban Road 19 278 297 Minibus /Bus Drivers Rural Road 41 256 297 Total ( ∑ ) 60 534 594 Urban Road 33 234 267 Truck / Van / Articulated Truck Rural Road 16 43 59 Drivers Total ( ∑ ) 49 277 326 Methodology Chi-Square (χ²) goodness of fit test The Chi-Square test or the so-called Chi-Square independence test is a statistical test that is based on whether the difference in expected frequencies observed in an observational study is statistically significant. The Chi-Square test is implemented by classifying the variables in the data set into two or more diagonal tables according to different criteria. The null hypothesis (H0) used in the test suggests that the two factors examined are statistically independent of each other. For the use of the test statistic, the data table is first prepared as a table and the expected value for each i-j cell in the table is calculated by Eq. 1. 𝐸𝑖𝑗 =
𝑁𝑖 𝑁𝐽 𝑂𝑡
(1)
In the equation; 𝑂𝑡 is the total number of observations, 𝑁𝑖 is the total number of observations in row "i", and 𝑁𝑗 is the total number of observations in column "j". Chi-square test statistic is calculated with the help of the Eq. 2. 𝑋𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑐 = ∑𝑖 ∑𝑗
(𝑂𝑖𝑗− 𝐸𝑖𝑗 ) 𝐸𝑖𝑗
(2)
In the equation; 𝑂𝑖𝑗 is the observed frequency value in the cell defined by the row “i” and column “j”. 𝐸𝑖𝑗 is the expected frequency value in the same cell. The degree of freedom of the test is determined with the formula of "(r1) (c-1)" with the row and column numbers in the generated table. In this equation, "r" is the total number of rows
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and "c" is the total number of columns in the table. The applicability of the test depends on whether the values in the cells are not smaller than a certain value. In the analysis, by using the Chi-Square distribution, the probability of having a greater calculated Chi-Square statistic is calculated P (X>𝑋𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑐 ). If the calculated P value is smaller than the selected significance level for the test, the previously determined 𝐻0 hypothesis is rejected and it is assumed that there is a relationship between the two factors. Analysis Findings The Chi-Square independence test in the study was conducted using Minitab software. Within the scope of the study, the results were evaluated by performing analysis for each of the three driver classes separately. Findings from the Chi-Square independence test are shown in Table 3. The relationship between observed and expected values is shown in Table 3 and Figure 4. Table 3. Chi-Square Goodness of Fit Test results for different driver groups. Seat Belt Use Driver Profile Urban Rural Observed Expected Observed Expected Used 203 246 201 174 Car Drivers Not-Used 945 902 550 577 Total ( ∑ ) 1148 1148 751 751 19 35 41 34 Used 278 262 256 263 Minibus /Bus Drivers Not-Used 297 297 297 297 Total ( ∑ ) Used 33 39 16 20 Truck / Van / Articulated Truck Not-Used 234 228 43 39 Drivers Total ( ∑ ) 267 267 59 59
(a) (b) (c) Figure 4. The results of the Chi-Square independence test for different types of vehicle drivers, the differences between the observed and expected values. The Chi-Square test in this study was conducted at a significance level of 0.05. As a result of the analysis, the following findings were obtained: For all types of drivers, it has been found that the ratio of the utilization of seat belts outside the city is statistically different from within the city. When Figure 4 is examined, the use of seat belts especially outside the city is more than expected, while in the city it is less than expected. Especially the difference between the expected and observed usage rates is lower for car drivers than for heavy vehicle drivers. This result is due to the fact that heavy vehicle drivers use seat belts very rarely in the city.
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It has been determined that traffic inspections were conducted in front of the provincial police headquarters where the traffic control points are located on the ring road passing through Gümüşhane city center. For this reason, it has been seen that the use of the seat belt of the drivers on this route has increased with the inspections. The fact that public transportation vehicles have in-vehicle camera systems and frequent traffic controls on the route may cause the development of belt attachment habits of these drivers especially in the interurban roads. There was no statistically significant difference between the urban and rural seat belt usage rates for the type of commercial vehicles (trucks, vans and articulated trucks), although there was a higher rate of belt use outside the city.
Results and Discussions Thousands of people lose their lives and injured every year in traffic accidents that take place in Turkey. Traffic accidents with severe consequences are found almost every day in the third page news. Despite the fact that traffic accidents are in the eyes of the society, significant increases have occurred in the number of vehicles that have been banned from traffic in recent years and the number of drivers referred to the prosecutor's office, and traffic fines have been usually practiced for the cases of excessive speed and not using seat belts. In order to find a solution to this adverse situation, and increase the seat belt usage rate, "Road Traffic Security Strategy and Action Plan" proposed by the representatives of related ministries, institutions and organizations under the coordination of General Directorate of Security (EGM). In order to contribute to these studies, this study was carried out to investigate the use of seat belts of Gümüşhane province and its surrounding area. As a result of the study, 21 % seat belt usage rate is obtained for Gümüşhane city. It is seen that the result obtained is almost the same as the average of Turkey. However, this ratio is very low and it is necessary to carry it upwards in an appropriate manner such that it is necessary to inform the drivers in a very short time with the courses to be opened and the trainings to be carried out and to expand the traffic controls to increase the use of the seat belt in order to increase this ratio. References Abay, A. R., Uslu, T. (2001). “Türkiye’de fahri trafik müfettişliği uygulaması ve sonuçları”, Polis Dergisi, 36: s. 22-23. Ege, R. (2004). “Açılış konuşması”, II. Trafik Şurası, Ankara, Türkiye. Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü (EGM) (1999). “Emniyet kemeri kullanım istatistikleri”, Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü Yayınları, Ankara, Türkiye. http://driving.ca/volvo/auto-news/news/a-not-so-brief-history-of-the-seatbelt, Erişim Tarihi: 20 Eylül 2016. Işıldar, S. (2004). “Karayolu trafik kazalarının önlenmesi ve değişik ülkelerde karayolu trafik polisinin eğitimi”, Polis Dergisi, 34; s.25-27. Karacasu M., Bilgiç Ş. (2000). “Türkiye‘de trafik kazalarının meydana geliş sebeplerinin genel değerlendirilmesi, uygulamaya yönelik sorunlar ve çözüm önerileri”, Trafik 2000 Sempozyumu, 22-23 Mayıs, Samsun, Türkiye. Koçak, A., Aktaş, E. Ö. (2004). “Ege üniversitesi tıp fakültesi öğretim üyeleri arasında çocuk koltuğu ve emniyet kemerinin kullanım yaygınlığı 2004”, II. Trafik Şurası, Ankara, s.55-59. Sweroad, (2001). “Ulusal Karayolu Trafik Güvenlik Projesi”, Taslak Nihai Rapor, Ankara, Türkiye. Şimşekoğlu, Ö., Lajunen, T. (2005). “Correlates of seat belt use among turkish front seat occupants”, Yüksek Lisans Tezi, ODTÜ Psikoloji Bölümü, Ankara, Türkiye. Tingvall, C., Haworth, N. (2000). Vision Zero: an ethical approach to safety and mobility. In 6th ITE International Conference Road Safety & Traffic Enforcement: Beyond (Vol. 1999). Trafik Daire Başkanlığı (TDB)“Genel kaza istatistikleri” Erişim Tarihi: 23 Mayıs 2011. http://www.trafik.gov.tr/istatistikler/10_yil_istatistik.asp (2010). Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu (TÜİK) 2015. Türkiye İstatistikleri, Ankara, Türkiye. Wikipedia 2010,“What is Seatbelt” Erişim Tarihi: 20 Eylül 2016. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seatbelt, (2010).
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