Utilization of Social Media for Raising Required Awareness of Human Factors Affecting Traffic Safety

Theme: Activating the National Partnership تفعيل الشراآة الوطنية: المحور

البحوث وأوراق العمل 2013نوفمبر 6-4الموافق 1435محرم 3-1 الملتقى الثاني للسالمة المروريةThe second Traffic Safety Forum 1-3 Muharram 1435 H- 4-6 November 2013 G Research papers

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UTILIZATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR RAISING REQUIRED AWARENESS OF HUMAN FACTORS AFFECTING TRAFFIC SAFETY

Eslam Mahmoud Nofal1

1 Lecturer Assistant, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Assiut University, Assiut,

Egypt, e-mail: [email protected]

Submission Date: / / Paper Type (Check one): □√ Scientific Paper □ Case study

Abstract It is believed that social media applications have already being accepted by young generations as a

platform to socialize, collaborate and learn in an informal and flexible manner. Social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook have become extremely popular recently. The number of Facebook users in the Saudi Arabia has approximately quadrupled in the last three years (early 2010 – early 2013), increasing from 1.39 million users to 5.85 million users. Youth (between the ages of 15 and 29) continue to make up around 60% of Facebook users in the kingdom. They prefer SNSs to access information as it reduces physical strain, speak freely and improve self-confidence and character-building.

Road traffic accidents (RTAs) in Saudi Arabia are becoming a serious public health problem, especially among teenagers and youth. Human factors are responsible for about 85 percent of all car accidents in the kingdom. Education and awareness are playing a promising role in traffic safety. Types of awareness concerning traffic safety varied widely. That is why the study aims to introduce the potential contribution of SNSs to raise the awareness of traffic safety among the Saudi youth, and to reduce the ratio of RTAs in the kingdom.

The paper emphasizes the effective role of social media; communication using social media is viewed to be personalized depending on the method of interaction with digital content (such as images, video, audio, and the written word). The paper introduced a potential utilization of SNSs as a one step forward towards achieving traffic awareness among Saudi youth to protect them from the potential damage caused by traffic accidents resulting of human factors.

Keywords Awareness, Social Network, Traffic Safety, Saudi Arabia



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لعوامل البشرية ل مستوى الوعي المطلوبتوظيف وسائل اإلعالم اإلجتماعية لرفع السالمة المرورية على المؤثرة

1لـإسالم محمود نوف

مدرس مساعد بقسم الهندسة المعمارية، آلية الهندسة، جامعة أسيوط، أسيوط، جمهورية مصر العربية1

[email protected]: البريد اإللكتروني

تجربة عرضأو مقالة مفيدة □ بحث علمي √□ ):اختار نوع: (نوع التقديم : / / الورقة تاريخ إرسال*

المستخلصعدد مستخدمي ؛ حيث أنه قد تضاعففي اآلونة األخيرة مثل الفيسبوكالتواصل اإلجتماعي للغاية مواقعقد تزايدت شعبية

تعتبر فئة و. مليون مستخدم 5.85ليصل إلى في السنوات الثالث األخيرة ًالمملكة العربية السعودية أربع مرات تقريبالفيسبوك في ا، فهم يفضلون استخدام مواقع فيسبوك في المملكةعام هي أآبر فئة تستخدم موقع ال 29و 15الذين تتراوح أعمارهم بين الشباب

. التحدث وزيادة الثقة بالنفس وبناء الشخصية التواصل اإلجتماعي حيث يوفر لهم حرية

العوامل البشرية هي المسؤولة عن تعتبر . اهقين والشبابفئة المرخطيرة، وخاصة بين و مشكلة عامةأصبحت حوادث الطرق ، حيثيةالسالمة المرور قضية في هامًا ًاالتوعية تلعب دورتلعب . في المئة من جميع حوادث السيارات في المملكة 85حوالي شبكات التواصل وتهدف الدراسة إلى التعرف على إمكانية مساهمة. عدة مستوياتبشأن السالمة المرورية على لتوعيةا سبلتتنوع

. في المملكة حوادث الطرقبالسالمة المرورية بين الشباب السعودي، والحد من نسبة توعيةلرفع الاإلجتماعي

شبكات التواصل ستفادة المحتملة منالدراسة طرق اإلقدم حيث تعالم االجتماعي؛ لإلوتؤآد الورقة على الدور الفعال بين الشباب السعودي لحمايتهم من األضرار المحتملة توعية بشأن السالمة المرورية آخطوة إلى األمام نحو تحقيق ال اإلجتماعي

.الناتجة من العوامل البشريةوالناجمة عن الحوادث المرورية

الةالكلمات الد .اإلجتماعي، السالمة المرورية، المملكة العربية السعودية شبكات التواصلالتوعية،



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1. INTRODUCTION

According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2004), road traffic accidents (RTAs) are a major public problem, killing nearly 1.3 million people each year and injuring as many as 50 million worldwide. They are the leading cause of death for children and young people aged 5 to 29 years. More than 90% of the world’s road traffic fatalities occur in developing countries.

In Saudi Arabia, there are approximately 7,100 road fatalities every year and 38,000 seriously injured individuals, of whom 7 percent are permanently disabled. According to the General Directorate of Traffic, the Kingdom has 23 deaths per 100,000 with an average of 19 road fatalities occurring daily (Al-Seghayer, 2013).

It has been reported that deaths from RTAs have been increasing, and are now the largest cause of death in adult males aged 16 to 36 years (WHO, 2006). Unfortunately, these numbers might be higher, every 60 minutes in 2014 a person will die on Saudi Arabia's roads if the country's accident rate continues at its current pace (Al-Khan, 2013). There were 600,000 crashes recorded in the kingdom last year. As a result, 7,638 people were killed. The 2012 crash statistics marked an 8 per cent increase from 2011, and fatalities have almost doubled since 2003 when crashes were to blame for 4,293 deaths. According to the latest United Nations statistics, civilian deaths as a result of war in Iraq and Afghanistan last year totaled 7,327, which is less than these fatal accidents in Saudi Arabia.

Hassan et al (2012) identified the eight main factors that affect traffic safety in the gulf region. These factors are grouped in four categories; human-related (including awareness; education and training; and behavior), engineering-related (including infrastructure and vehicle), enforcement-related and institution related (including coordination among stakeholders and quality of resources).

Source: Hassan et al (2011)

Figure 1 Recommendations to improve traffic safety in the gulf region and their impacts on the identified traffic safety factors.

Figure 1 shows the recommendations were set according to the deficiency and intensity of the identified factors that contribute to traffic safety. The aim of these recommendations is to provide some policy guidelines to overcome existing deficiencies which could later lead to an improvement in the status of traffic



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safety in the Gulf countries. Recommendations are considered from a set of best practices around the world (Hassan et al, 2011).

From the above four categories, Human factors are responsible for about 85 percent of all car accidents in the Kingdom (Al-Seghayer, 2013). Drivers between 18 to 40 years of age were involved in approximately 65% of traffic accidents, with more than 90% of young adult in the gulf region owned vehicles (Gharaibeh et al, 2011). In particular, young people are not taught in schools about driving and about how to behave on the road and they also lack knowledge of traffic rules and regulations.

Due to the above reasons, several studies stressed on the urgent need to raise public awareness of road safety issues, to educate drivers on safe driving practices, and to strict law enforcement strategies [(Al-Seghayer, 2013), (Kulkarni et al, 2013), (Zhou et al, 2011), (Hassan et al, 2011), and (Gharaibeh et al, 2011)]. It is argued that traffic accidents number and severity could be reduced by utilizing the 4Es solutions; Engineering, Education, Enforcement, and Emergency. Hassan et al (2011) argued that awareness campaigns had a high priority as a recommendation that contribute to traffic safety concerning the human-related factors, as shown in Figure 1.

2. SOCIAL NETWORKING IN SAUDI ARABIA

Socializing via the Internet has become an increasingly important part of young adult life. Relative to the general population, adolescents and young adults are the heaviest computer and Internet users, primarily using it for completing school assignments, e-mail and/or instant messaging, and playing computer games. Social-networking sites (SNSs) are the latest online communication tool that allows users to create a public or private profile to interact with people in their networks (Kirschner et al, 2010). SNS can be defined as:

… web-based services that allow individuals to: (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (Boyd et al, 2008, p. 211).

The growing popularity of SNSs for use in business, advertizing, recreation, educational purposes has become an international phenomenon. Second Life, Facebook, Google+, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networking sites are a set of web technologies designed to facilitate content creation, sharing, communication and interaction among users (Weber, 2012). They often revolve around user generated content such as photos, videos and blog text, and copyright and data ownership issues have been the subject of serious debates.

In the past few years, Facebook has risen to become the top SNS with over 40 languages. Facebook occupied the second most popular site in the world, after Google, and the first SNS (Al-Omoush et al, 2012). With the availability of the Arabic version in 2009, Facebook has become the most popular SNS.

According to ‘social baker’s site’, the heart of Facebook statistics, 20 of the 22 Arab countries are currently involved in the Facebook society (www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics); Table 1 shows the statistics of Facebook users in the Arab region. In particular, by the beginning of 2011, Facebook has attracted more than 21.31 million users across the Arabic countries. By May 2013, Facebook has spread to more than 45.81 million Arab users (IWS, 2013). A notable difference between the West and Arab world is that, while more than 50% of the Western Facebook users are female, on the average, only about 36% of Arabic Facebook members are female. The percentage of youth users has decreased slightly due to slow and steady uptake amongst users aged 30 and above. As of May 2013 the percentage of users below the age of 30 was 68% (DSG, 2013).

The number of Facebook users in Saudi Arabia has approximately quadrupled in the last three years (early 2010 – early 2013), increasing from 1.39 million users to 5.85 million users as mentioned in Table 1. In spite of the Saudi population is the fifth majority in the Arab world, Facebook users in the kingdom are considered the second majority in the Arab region after the Egyptians. Youth (between the ages of 15 and 29) continue to make up around 60% of Facebook users in the kingdom. They prefer SNSs to access information as it reduces physical strain, speak freely and improve self-confidence and character-building.



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Table 1 Statistics of Facebook users in Arab region

Ara

bian

R

ank

Wor

ld

Ran

k

Country

Population

(End of 2012)

Internet Users

(End of 2012)

Facebook Users

(End of 2012)

% Internet

Users

% Facebook

Users

% Facebook Users of Internet

Users 1 20 Egypt 83,688,164 29,809,724 12,173,540 35.62% 14.55% 40.84% 2 33 Saudi Arabia 26,534,504 13,000,000 5,852,520 48.99% 22.06% 45.02% 3 35 Morocco 32,309,239 16,477,712 5,091,760 51% 15.76% 30.9% 4 41 Algeria 37,367,226 5,230,000 4,111,320 14% 11% 78.61% 5 46 U. A. Emirates 8,264,070 5,859,118 3,442,940 70.9% 41.66% 58.76%6 49 Tunisia 10,732,900 4,196,564 3,328,300 39.1% 31.01% 79.31% 7 56 Jordan 6,508,887 2,481,940 2,558,140 38.13% 39.3% 103.07% 8 57 Iraq 31,129,225 2,211,860 2,555,140 7.11% 8.21% 115.52% 9 72 Lebanon 4,140,289 2,152,950 1,587,060 52% 38.33% 73.72% 10 82 Palestine 2,622,544 1,512,273 966,960 57.66% 36.87% 63.94%11 88 Kuwait 2,646,314 1,963,565 890,780 74.2% 33.66% 45.37%12 90 Libya 5,613,380 954,275 781,700 17% 13.93% 81.92% 13 97 Qatar 1,951,591 1,682,271 671,720 86.2% 34.42% 39.93% 14 100 Oman 3,090,150 2,101,302 584,900 68% 18.93% 27.84% 15 107 Yemen 24,771,809 3,691,000 495,440 14.9% 2% 13.42% 16 110 Bahrain 1,248,348 961,228 413,200 77% 33.1% 42.99% 17 144 Somalia 10,085,638 126,070 123,480 1.25% 1.22% 97.95% 18 150 Mauritania 3,359,185 151,163 106,200 4.5% 3.16% 70.26% 19 167 Djibouti 774,389 61,320 50,140 7.92% 6.47% 81.77% 20 188 Comoros 737,284 40,550 19,940 5.5% 2.7% 49.17%

Source: IWS (2013)

3. HUMAN FACTORS AFFECTING TRAFFIC SAFETY AND REQUIRING AWARENESS

Petridou et al (2001) have delineated the human factors causing road traffic accidents. These factors can be distinguished as (a) those that reduce capability on a long-term basis (inexperience, aging, disease and disability, alcoholism, drug abuse), (b) those that reduce capability on a short-term basis (drowsiness, fatigue, acute alcohol intoxication, short term drug effects, binge eating, acute psychological stress, temporary distraction), (c) those that promote risk taking behavior with long-term impact (overestimation of capabilities, macho attitude, habitual speeding, habitual disregard of traffic regulations, indecent driving behavior, non-use of seat belt or helmet, inappropriate sitting while driving, accident proneness) and (d) those that promote risk taking behavior with short-term impact (moderate ethanol intake, psychotropic drugs, motor vehicle crime, suicidal behavior, compulsive acts).

In Saudi Arabia, human factors are responsible for about 85 percent of all car accidents (Al-Seghayer, 2013). In particular, young people are not taught in schools about driving and about how to behave on the road and they also lack knowledge of traffic rules and regulations. Indeed, it can be said that a very large number of drivers are inexperienced and lack training.

The driver characteristics are important variables to be considered in the analysis of traffic accidents since drivers have a major role in many accidents. Driver’s age distribution is an important variable to be analyzed and looked into thoroughly. Drivers in the age group between 18 and 40 (about 58% of the driver's population) are involved in approximately 78% of the total accidents (Al-Zahrani et al, 1994).

The study focuses on the utilization of social network sites (SNSs) work as an effective tool for raising the awareness of human factors affecting traffic safety among Saudi youth, as depicted in Figure 2. Types of awareness concerning traffic safety varied widely. These types should be utilized in future directions in order to avoid/ reduce the causing factors of RTAs as the gray arrows mention in Figure 2.



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Source: Author

Figure 2 The potential contribution to traffic safety concerning the human factors

The General Directorate of Traffic report indicates that one-third of traffic accidents are due to drivers failing to stop for red lights, followed by 18 percent of accidents caused by illegal U-turns. Other driver-related factors include speeding, sudden stops, using mobile phones while driving, driving in a reckless and aggressive fashion, tailgating other vehicles, and making frequent lane changes. Furthermore, young people do not have a variety of recreational options in Saudi Arabia and, as a result, they suffer from feelings of frustration which in some cases result in aggressive driving and risk taking (Al-Seghayer, 2013). So that, the study focuses on the following human factors:

3.1 Failing to Stop at Red Lights

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, nearly 2 million crashes occur in intersections each year. In 2007, red-light running resulted in 900 fatalities and over 153,000 injuries nationwide. A nationwide study of fatal crashes at traffic signals estimates that 20 percent of the drivers involved failed to obey the signals (www.orangecountyfl.net). According to General Directorate of Traffic report, one-third of traffic accidents are due to drivers failing to stop for red lights in Saudi Arabia.

Driver behavior is a significant contributing factor to the incidence of red light running. Motorists may accelerate when anticipating a change in signal indication, in order to make it through the intersection on the yellow. If a motorist misjudges the time of the change, he or she will enter the intersection against the red signal indication. For many drivers, inattentiveness can be the contributing cause (FHA, 2003). Drivers that travel above the posted speed limit or too fast for conditions increase the minimum distance needed to stop before entering intersections and decrease the time available to react to a change in traffic signal indication, as illustrated in Section 3.3.

A well-designed public information and education campaign will assist drivers and the general public to understand the safety issues inherent to red light running, providing information and data that explains red light running, why red light running is dangerous, and what actions are currently being undertaken to reduce the incidence of red light running. One of the key messages of the red light running education campaign can be the economic and emotional toll of red light running. Emotional toll of red light running to victims and their families is quite obvious but indirect economic costs of red light running related crashes in terms of lost productivity, higher insurance premiums, and medical cost can be significant as well. Red light running education campaigns are most likely to change behavior of licensed drivers who either not aware of the danger associated with running red lights or assign them as a very low risk.



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3.2 Illegal U-Turns

During the past decades, more and more states and local transportation agencies have recognized the safety benefits of using U-turns as alternatives to direct left-turn movements from driveways, and have started installing restrictive medians and directional median openings on multilane highways (Liu et al, 2008).

Median U-turns are sometimes installed to improve the traffic flow at busy intersections by eliminating left turns. Combinido et al (2010) proved that the geometry of U-turns promotes interaction of cars: at the very least, the cars coming from the U-turn and the on ramp meet at the junction. It also contributes to the slowdown of cars maneuvering the U-turn segment. Although statistical measurements have shown that U-turns provide decreased congestion and increased car flow compared to left-hand turns, it is suggested that its effectiveness is limited to low car inflow and minimal (and equally probable) lane changing maneuvers. Awareness about U-turns should be activated in Saudi Arabia, as illegal U-turns cause 18 percent of accidents in the kingdom (Al-Seghayer, 2013).

3.3 Unsafe Speed

Unsafe speed, which is defined as driving too fast for road and traffic conditions, is one of the most frequently cited contributing factors in fatality and injury producing crashes in police reported incidents. Total stopping distance is the distance the vehicle will travel from the moment a hazard has been noticed until the moment the vehicle stops. Time is needed to see and react before the brakes even begin to slow the vehicle. Total stopping distance is longer than most drivers realize. Under ideal conditions, it takes about three quarters of a second to see the hazard and make a decision (perception distance). Then it takes about another three quarters of a second to react; getting the foot off the accelerator and onto the brake (reaction distance). Actual braking distance; the time it takes the brakes to bring the vehicle to a stop, depends on a number of things: the road condition, the condition of the brakes and tires, and the travelling speed (www.city.kamloops.bc.ca). Figure 2 indicates the stopping distance according to the vehicle speed. By doubling the speed, the braking distance is multiplied by four. In wet road condition, it is even more. Also, by doubling the speed, the hit is four times harder.

Source: (www.city.kamloops.bc.ca)

Figure 2 Stopping distance according to the vechile speed

Internationally a number of initiatives have applied ‘safe speed’ limits aimed at reducing the rate and severity of crashes between vehicles and other road users. Examples of longer running strategies are ‘Vision Zero’ in Sweden and ‘Tempo 30’ in wider Europe. These speed reduction strategies are usually part of larger initiatives generally aimed at reducing death and injury on road systems.



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‘Vision Zero’ is a long term Swedish initiative that aims to reduce deaths and serious injury on the Swedish road network to zero, ‘Vision Zero’ considers the issue of safety in the road system in an ethical context rather than an economic or engineering one, so that no death or serious injury is acceptable. ‘Tempo 30’ is a more general application of 30 km/h speed limits in Europe based on impact speed and pedestrian fatality and injury data. ‘Tempo 30’ was initially developed in Germany in the 1980s and involved a road hierarchy system with five categories ranging from Autobahns to pedestrian orientated zones (Garrad, 2008).

3.4 Sudden Stops

The car accident occurs frequently when a vehicle stops suddenly. Drivers sometimes cause an accident by driving too close to the vehicle in front (tailgating) and not adjusting to the road conditions. In order to avoid a collision with vehicle in front, a sufficiently long headway to the vehicle ahead is necessary. Also, it is necessary and important that the speed of the vehicle is not high to stop successfully. The collision with vehicle ahead will depend on the headway, the speed, and driver’s sensitivity (Sugiyama et al, 2012).

It is important and necessary to know the conditions of collision when the vehicle in front stops suddenly. A multiple-vehicle collision is a road traffic accident involving many vehicles. The multiple-vehicle collision is severe accident. The mass of crumpled vehicles depends highly on the road condition and traffic situation. Awareness on this issue is highly important in order to reduce the number of RTAs.

3.5 Using Mobile Phones While Driving

Distracted driving is an important road safety issue. The usage of mobile phones whilst driving is highly distracting and increases the risk of a crash four-fold. To date, campaigns to reduce mobile phone use while driving have adopted a deterrence based approach involving the combined use of law enforcement and education campaigns. The continued high level use of mobile phones while driving indicates that such broad-scale approaches may be ineffective due to the range of personal and motivational factors which influence driver behavior (White et al, 2010). So that, awareness campaigns should attempt to minimize the perceived benefits of this behavior, increase public disapproval for it, and highlight the preventable risks of this unsafe driving practice. Young drivers should particularly be targeted (CARRS-Q, 2012).

There is a debate between the risks and the benefits associated with mobile phone use while driving. Lissy et al (2000) argued that the benefits of using Mobile phone while driving appear to be important. They include benefits to the users, households, social networks, businesses, and communities. They believe that the argument of the benefits of mobile phone use while driving could be preserved under a restrictive regulation is naïve and potentially encouraging of hazardous behavior. If drivers retain a mobile phone in their car and pull over to the side of the road to make their calls, there is an incremental risk of collision associated with stopping on the shoulder of a road/highway and re-entering traffic after the call has been made. Moreover, many roads and highways are not designed with an adequate shoulder for drivers to pull over safely and make phone calls.

Saudi Arabia is becoming increasingly reliant on mobile phone use and an increasing number of vehicles are being fitted with Bluetooth technology, facilitating voice activation and thus totally hands-free phone use. Though this may lead to fewer hand held phones used while driving in the future, research indicates that these conveniences may not eliminate the risk. With new hands free technology likely to increase mobile phone use in vehicles, awareness on the modality of mobile utilization while driving should be spread among youth to avoid/ reduce potential crashes.

3.6 Reckless and Aggressive Driving

The problems experienced in the research of driver aggression can be attributed, in part, to the complexity and vagueness of some of the concepts involved. Both the dependent and the independent variables are difficult to define. Crash and violation frequency are often difficult to establish accurately due to incomplete official crash records (Grey et al, 1989). New and veteran drivers must be aware of both aggressive driving and road rage and know how to deal with each when they occur. In particular, aggressive driving can occur sometimes without us even knowing it, yet it affects others with whom we share the road. At the 1999 Symposium “Aggressive Driving and the Law” (Quiroga et al, 2003), participants identified a range of



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strategies to deal with the aggressive driving problem, covering areas such as statutory approaches, uses of applied technology, sentencing, community leadership, and enforcement. In the area of public awareness, the participants identified the following strategies:

involve a wide range of stakeholders during the development and dissemination of educational and public awareness campaigns, including educators, law enforcement personnel, prosecutors, judges, insurers, medical community, advertising, and civic groups;

develop messages that are clear and uniform, localized, and personalized; and develop educational materials that are innovative and make use of appropriate technologies.

Attempts to modify driver attitudes and behavior have concentrated on enforcement and awareness. A large motivational component of safe driving behavior would imply that modification of human behavior may be productive in decreasing crash rates. However, attempts to alter driver behavior have been largely unsuccessful. The motivational components of driver behavior are highly complex. It would almost certainly not be fruitful to suggest that crashes could be reduced simply by calling to the attention of the individual that he or she has a pattern of characteristics associated with high crashes (Grey et al, 1989). Attempts to influence driver motivation include enforcement programs and driver awareness programs.

4. THE ROLE OF FACEBOOK IN RAISING AWARENESS

The power of media on our lives is immense, it is not only a source of entertainment but it helps in making us from our opinions on major issues of social importance. Print and electronic media help in awareness related to current affairs in an era of information, the impact of media, be it print or electronic, on our lives, cannot be ignored. The explosion of SNSs, especially Facebook, has suggested the richness of new media for effective communications to engage young people. It has become one of the largest platforms in the world for sharing real time information. Below is some literature regarding utilization of Facebook in the field of awareness about various issues.

Facebook is used to promote a business and to create brand awareness. This requires walking the finest of fine lines: to market without intruding and to advertise without offending. Qiu et al (2010) studied how Facebook browsing affects self-awareness and social well-being. Their results show that after Facebook browsing, individuals high in narcissism raised their public self-awareness while those low in narcissism reduced their public self-awareness. Parveen (2011) examined the effect of environment of Facebook in learning followed by as assessment into the awareness and understanding its role to the change learning world among library and information science professionals of university libraries of University Kanpur. She found that Facebook works as an effective tool for imparting information or knowledge and proves helpful in making awareness. The evolving nature of healthcare education and information provision and the rich information relating to concussion on SNSs such as Facebook has been highlighted. (Ahmed et al, 2010). This approach extends the traditional modes of distributing client information on concussion by placing it in a social networking context; however, the lack of expert support or moderation of the discussion postings means that there is the possibility of giving incorrect advice to the target audience.

Facebook has been also used in increasing environmental awareness. A study conducted in Malaysia (Ali, 2011) showed that there is a substantial relationship between perceived media richness of Facebook and the perceived climate change awareness. SNSs’ educational and awareness potential has been demonstrated in the recent Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. SNSs such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube probably played a major role in the 2011 uprisings in North Africa by raising young Arabs’ awareness about the actual political and social conditions in their own countries; and through discussions in forums and chat rooms, the crowdsourcing of expert and peer opinion on the historical circumstances of current government policies deeply guided public opinion (weber, 2012).

Regarding the traffic safety awareness, the Traffic and Patrols Directorate at Abu Dhabi Police has launched an introductory campaign to familiarize community members with its program to reduce traffic accidents, titled "Together" on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to raise the standard of traffic culture (zawya.com). They found that the total posts, comments and views on Facebook amounted to 8.293, 432, while the number of followers of the program totaled 30,000 followers. Furthermore, they noted that the number of awareness messages via Twitter amounted to 6,220; awareness messages via "YouTube" reached 1.100,000 users.



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57,000 viewers watched a 6-minute video clip on YouTube, which proves the success of the SNSs in awareness programs. Young adults in general prefer a realistic, frank and direct approach in traffic safety messages. They prefer to get their information through print, radio and video advertisements; television commercials; radio and television public service announcements; interactive Web sites; and promotional events (CTC et al, 2007).

5. UTILIZATION OF FACEBOOK ON TRAFFIC SAFETY AWARENESS

Types of awareness concerning traffic safety varied widely. This paper focuses on raising the required awareness of human factors affecting traffic safety among Saudi youth by utilization of SNSs, especially Facebook due its wide spread in the kingdom as indicated before. The potential utilization of Facebook is promising to dramatically reduce the number of RTAs and to spread cultural awareness about traffic safety by providing early warnings, real time notifications, and awareness after violations, which creates a psychological change in the violator’s mind which probably helps to reduce/avoid violations of the same type in future (Hassan et al, 2012). Table 2 articulates the different types of utilization of Facebook aiming to achieve traffic safety awareness concerning the human factors.

Table 2 Potential utilization of Facebook to raise the awareness of traffic safety

Human Factors Type of Utilization of Facebook 1

Failing to stop at red lights

Regular notifications on accident rate due to drivers failing to stop at red lights.

Regular notifications on traffic fines issued to drivers failed to stop at red lights.

Regular notifications on percentage of drivers with zero record of crossing red lights.

Forum discussion about the hazards of running red lights. 2

Illegal U-turns Regular notifications on the legal coming U-turns thanks to GPS. Regular notifications on the missing U-turns thanks to GPS, in the case of U-turn willingness.

Regular notifications on accident rate due to illegal U-turns. Innovative educational videos regarding U-turn regulations.

3

Unsafe speed Sending seat-belt vocal warning. Sending a notification of the allowed speed in the street. Regular notification on exceeding speed limit within a moment of violation.

Educational video about the total stopping distance according to the vehicle speed.

Forum discussions about the fatal hazards of drive mad. 4

Sudden stops Sending seat-belt vocal warning. Sending warning to avoid driving too close to the vehicle in front (tailgating).

Notifications on coming road bumps thanks to GPS. Awareness tips to reduce/ avoid stop suddenly. Innovative educational videos about safe stopping distance.

5

Using mobile phones while driving

Reminder of activating Bluetooth to facilitating voice activation without holding the mobile phone.

Regular notifications on percentage of drivers with zero record of using mobile phone.

Awareness videos about the various possibilities of totally hands-free phone use.

Forums discussions about distracting while driving. 6

Reckless and aggressive driving

Sending warning to avoid frequent lane changes. Innovative educational videos about the different types of aggressive driving.

Traffic awareness tips to be circulated among friends and family. Forum discussions about the hazards of youth aggressive driving in order to prevent unintentional injuries and deaths.

Source: Author



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The above suggested types of utilization require advancing Facebook with additional computational capabilities that are not currently existed. Developers should work in this direction to realize this potentiality. It is also suggested that the utilized Facebook while driving must be via fixed device combined with GPS inside the vehicle. This device should be provided by vocal warning technology in order to avoid distracting while driving.

6. CONCLUSION

Driver behavior is an important factor for traffic safety. Enhancing driver safety awareness is an efficient method to reduce traffic accidents. Awareness is a part of any significant change to traffic control. Success of road safety in Saudi Arabia mainly relies on improving traffic safety education and awareness campaigns. Human factors are responsible for about 85 percent of all car accidents in the kingdom.

Social networking sites have great potential for educational and awareness use and are already in use for these purposes. These potentialities may pose significant challenges to traffic awareness campaigns. The increasing number of young and teenagers Facebook users in Saudi Arabia was the main motivation of the research to identify the potential contribution of SNSs to raise the required awareness of human factors affecting traffic safety among the Saudi youth.

The paper introduced a potential utilization of SNSs as a one step forward towards achieving traffic awareness among Saudi youth to protect them from the potential damage caused by traffic accidents resulting of human factors. This utilization requires advancing Facebook with future additional computational capabilities, which should be implemented by the developers. The future directions also include the other methods of awareness in order to avoid/ reduce the other causing factors of RTAs.

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Utilization of Social Media for Raising Required Awareness of Human Factors Affecting Traffic Safety

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