01625666

Component

Research on Chinese traffic law compliance is lacking compared to the West. Yet it is increasingly important because of explosive recent growth of cars in China. Although relationships between demographic attributes and driver characteristics and traffic law compliance have been explored, normative and instrumental motivations for compliance have not been thoroughly studied. Normative motivations in particular have not been fully considered in the Chinese context. Normative motivations are especially important because they compel people to comply without policy instruments. The authors investigate the motivations for traffic law compliance in China with a more inclusive framework that incorporates legitimacy and morality as normative motivations. The authors show that while morality was most strongly related to compliance for all groups, other motivations exerted varying degrees of influence on compliance for different groups. In particular, legitimacy influences compliance more strongly for younger drivers than for older drivers for traffic violations particular to China. In contrast, concerns about personal safety influence compliance more strongly for older drivers than for younger drivers. The authors also show that there exists the norms gap between distracted driving and other traffic laws. This study suggests potential strategies for policymakers through tailoring enforcement and public campaigns towards different demographic groups and for particular traffic laws.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE90 Standing Committee on Transportation in the Developing Countries.

01618707

17-04386

English

20p

2017

Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

References; Tables

Behavior; Compliance; Culture (Social sciences); Distraction; Drivers; Highway safety; Traffic law enforcement

China

Highways; Law; Safety and Human Factors

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2017 Paper #17-04386

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 8 2016 11:40AM