KTC-02-04
SPR 249-02-1F
"2001 Traffic Safety Issues Opinion Survey", Ken Agent, Jerry Pigman Ron Langley
ABSTRACT
As a means of determining public opinion on specific traffic safety issues, a public opinion survey was conducted. A total of 4,500 mail surveys were sent to a stratified sample of drivers selected from the drivers license file. The state was divided into three regions (based on Area Development District) to determine if opinions varied by region of the state. There were 2,097 responses received for a response rate of about 51.5 percent for eligible surveys. The margin-of-error for a sample of this size is plus or minus 2.1 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.
The most support was for legislation which would regulate training at commercial truck driving schools and would require the state to administer all tests for a truck driver to obtain a commercial drivers license. There was also strong support for designating funds to be used for high school driver education, requiring motorcyclists to wear a helmet, retesting high risk drivers, various changes to the graduated driver licensing procedure, prohibiting riding in the bed of a pickup on public roads, and prohibiting the use of cell phones while driving. Requiring a vision test or proof of a recent eye exam before driver license renewal and increasing the speed limit on rural interstates also received support. The response was neutral concerning the use of cameras to enforce red light running. The respondents were generally opposed to changing the seat belt law from secondary to primary enforcement and use of checkpoints to identify traffic safety violations. There was strong opposition for requiring a written test or road test before driver license renewal.