Traffic Injury Prevention
ISSN: 1538-9588 (Print) 1538-957X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gcpi20
Motorcycle safety among motorcycle taxi drivers and nonoccupational motorcyclists in developing countries: A case study of Maoming, South China Connor Y. H. Wu & Becky P. Y. Loo To cite this article: Connor Y. H. Wu & Becky P. Y. Loo (2016) Motorcycle safety among motorcycle taxi drivers and nonoccupational motorcyclists in developing countries: A case study of Maoming, South China, Traffic Injury Prevention, 17:2, 170-175, DOI: 10.1080/15389588.2015.1048336 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2015.1048336
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Date: 14 February 2016, At: 20:22
TRAFFIC INJURY PREVENTION , VOL. , NO. , – http://dx.doi.org/./..
Motorcycle safety among motorcycle taxi drivers and nonoccupational motorcyclists in developing countries: A case study of Maoming, South China Connor Y. H. Wu and Becky P. Y. Loo
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Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China
ABSTRACT
ARTICLE HISTORY
Objective: An increasing number of motorcycle taxis have been involved in traffic crashes in many developing countries. This study examines the characteristics of both motorcycle taxi drivers and nonoccupational motorcyclists, investigates the risks they pose to road safety, and provides recommendations to minimize their risks. Methods: Based on the data collected from a questionnaire survey of 867 motorcycle taxi drivers and 2,029 nonoccupational motorcyclists in Maoming, South China, comparisons were made to analyze differences of personal attributes, attitudes toward road safety, and self-reported behavior of the 2 groups. Results: Results of the chi-square tests show that not only motorcycle taxi drivers but also nonoccupational motorcyclists in Maoming held poor attitudes toward road safety and both groups reported unsafe driving behavior. There is much room for improving local road safety education among all motorcyclists in Maoming. Yet, motorcycle taxi drivers were more likely to pose road safety risks than nonoccupational motorcyclists under some circumstances, such as speeding late at night or early in the morning, not requiring passengers to wear helmets, and running a red light. The results of the binary logistic regression model show that possessing a vehicle license for a motorcycle or not was the common significant predictor for unsafe driving behavior of motorcycle taxi drivers and nonoccupational motorcyclists. Therefore, enforcement against all motorcyclists not showing vehicle licenses for their motorcycles should be stepped up. Conclusion: Motorcycle safety is largely poor in Maoming. Therefore, efforts to improve motorcycle safety should be strengthened by targeting not only motorcycle taxi drivers but also nonoccupational motorcyclists.
Received September Accepted May
Introduction Motorcycle taxis are a common means of commercial transport in developing countries. Approximately 100,000 people worked as motorcycle taxi drivers in Guangzhou, South China, prior to the motorcycle ban in January 2007 (Xiang 2006). The reasons behind the growing popularity of motorcycle taxis are far from unique. First, people in developing countries are likely to use motorcycle taxis because of the low fare, especially in comparison with taxis. Second, compared to the bus system, motorcycle taxis are faster and have greater route flexibility, particularly in areas where the bus system is underdeveloped. Third, motorcycle owners can easily start a business because of minimal entry requirements (e.g., investment, knowledge, skills, and experience) and a flexible work schedule. The exact number of motorcycle taxi drivers is difficult to estimate because they are not licensed or regulated by governments in most developing countries. Yet, they ride on the road frequently and thus have a high risk exposure to a traffic crash (Wolfe 1982). For instance, 45.8% of motorcycle taxi drivers in Nigeria were involved in traffic crashes (Oginni et al. 2007). The rate in Ghana was over 50% and approximately 80% were involved in crashes more than once (Agyekum-Boamah 2012).
KEYWORDS
motorcycle taxi drivers; motorcycle safety; questionnaire survey; binary logistic regression
Additionally, motorcycle taxi drivers may speed or undertake other unsafe driving behavior to evade the enforcement actions of transport authorities (Xu 2010). Motorcycle taxi drivers also negatively affect road safety in other ways. For instance, previous studies showed that many motorcycle taxi drivers ride under the influence of alcohol or without a helmet (Adisa 2010; Agyekum-Boamah 2012; Oginni et al. 2007). Additionally, many motorcycle taxi drivers work without insurance or a driver’s license for the motorcycle (Akinlade and Brieger 2003; Ngim and Udosen 2007). The unsafe behavior of motorcycle taxi drivers is associated with low education and the lack of formal training on road safety (Adisa 2010; Ngim and Udosen 2007; Oginni et al. 2007). However, the studies cited above were conducted in developing countries in Africa. Therefore, whether the findings of these studies are applicable to developing countries with different cultures, traffic laws, and traffic facilities requires further investigation. Methodologically, most previous studies have excluded nonoccupational motorcyclists from the target population and focused on motorcycle taxi drivers only. Hence, how these findings can be applied to improve overall motorcycle safety (including both motorcycle taxi drivers and nonoccupational motorcyclists) is
CONTACT Connor Y. H. Wu
[email protected] Department of Geography, Room , th Floor, The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. Associate Editor Richard Frampton oversaw the review of this article. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
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unknown. To fill this research gap, this study conducted a questionnaire survey of both motorcycle taxi drivers and nonoccupational motorcyclists in China where approximately 28% of all casualties in traffic crashes were motorcyclists and its culture and traffic laws differ from those in other developing countries in Africa (World Health Organization 2009).
Methods
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Study design We conducted a questionnaire survey in the urban area of Maoming, one of the most populous cities in southwestern Guangdong, China. The city had an estimated population of 7.26 million, including an urban population of 1.3 million, in 2008 (Statistics Bureau of Maoming 2009). Its urban land area was 63 km2 with a road network of 137 km (Huang 2009). The motorcycle is a major mode of transport in Maoming. By the end of 2012, the number of registered motorcycles was roughly 1.14 million, about 85.3% of all registered motor vehicles in Maoming (Statistics Bureau of Maoming 2013b). The number of motorcycles per hundred families in Maoming was more than 5 times higher than the national average (110.00 vs. 20.27) in 2012 (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2014; Statistics Bureau of Maoming 2013a). Motorcycle taxis are common in Maoming. However, this transport mode is neither licensed nor regulated. Since 1995, the Maoming government has imposed a motorcycle taxi ban that prohibits any person from providing motorcycle taxi services or riding a motorcycle to carry passengers as a business in both urban and rural areas of the city. This ban targeted both 2- and 3-wheeled motorcycle taxis. Three-wheeled motorcycle taxis are rare on the roads of Maoming because the local government has also banned all 3-wheeled motorcycles (except those used by people with disabilities) since then. Nonetheless, the ban on 2wheeled motorcycle taxis has limited effect because 2-wheeled motorcycles have always been an important means of transport in Maoming. The local government, therefore, did not totally ban them. In this article, the term motorcycle refers to 2-wheeled motorcycles, including those equipped with gasoline and electric engines.
Figure . Process model of perceptions and behavioral response to motorcycles in transport (Loo ; Sell et al. )
February 11 to 12, 2012, to improve the questionnaire design. The main survey was carried out from May 28 to July 15, 2012, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., in public places where motorcyclists typically gather to rest, such as motorcycle parking areas or plazas in front of government offices, institutions, and communities (GICs) that cover different parts of the urban area of Maoming. Most motorcycle taxi drivers in Maoming can be identified by (1) their motorcycles, which are equipped with gasoline engines; (2) their clothing; and (3) the manner in which they solicit potential customers. Interviewers would introduce the purpose of the survey to all participations at the beginning of the survey. To achieve standardization and to minimize interviewer bias for these face-to-face surveys, interviewers attended a briefing and 9 other meetings before and during the survey period. A power analysis was conducted by using the free power program G∗Power to determine the required sample size (Cohen 1988; Faul et al. 2007). Given that the statistical analysis in this study mainly consists of the chi-square tests and binary logistic regression (BLR), the results of G∗Power show the required sample size for these two statistical tests in Tables A1 and A2 (see online supplement), respectively. The minimal number for the required sample size is 187 in this study.
Questionnaire survey
Data analysis
The 10-min questionnaire used in this study has 3 parts. The first part includes questions that evaluated motorcyclists’ attitudes and behaviors with regard to helmet use, speeding, drink driving, and red light violation because they were identified as common unsafe behaviors among local motorcyclists in Maoming. For instance, questions on helmet use were included because our pilot survey found that the rate of helmet use was low in the city. The second part focuses on the personal attributes of the motorcyclists and the motorcycle characteristics. The final part focuses on observations about whether the interviewees used helmets, whether they displayed their license plates, and the type of motorcycles used. Ethical approval for this survey was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee for Non-Clinical Faculties, the University of Hong Kong. We conducted a pilot survey from
This study adopts the conceptual model on knowledge, attitude, and behavior proposed and developed by Sell et al. (1988) and Loo (2002) to understand the potential road safety risks posed by motorcyclists. Figure 1 illustrates the relationships among the perceptions, personal attributes, and behaviors of motorcyclists and the ways in which these factors affect one another. We compared the personal attributes of the 2 groups to obtain a more in-depth understanding of the profiles of the motorcycle taxi drivers, such as gender, age, education, personal income, driving experience, the motorcycle’s year of manufacture, driving hours, engine type, maintenance budget, and possession of a driver’s license and vehicle license for the motorcycle. Then the attitudes of the 2 groups toward road safety were analyzed by using chi-square tests to determine whether statistically
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Table . Results of the final BLR models. Knowledge OR (% CI)
Independent variable (IV) Education Income (RMB) Driving experiencea Vehicle license (yes) Has a helmet (yes) Displays a license plate (yes)
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Education Income (RMB) Driving experiencea Vehicle license (yes) Has a helmet (yes) Displays a license plate (yes)
Nonoccupational motorcyclists . (.–.) . (.–.) .∗ (.–.) .∗ (.–.) .∗ (.–.) . (.–.) . (.–.) . (.–.) Motorcycle taxi drivers >Junior high school . (.–.) >, .∗ (.–.) ࣙ and
