Determinants of Awareness on Road Accidents and Knowledge on Traffic Rules: Empirical Evidence From Khulna City in Bangladesh

This paper focuses on the socio-demographic, economic and other determinants of “awareness” and “knowledge of traffic rules” of road accident victims. Probit models have been estimated, based on the data on road traffic accidents (RTAs) in Khulna City of Bangladesh; data were collected from 200 victims by using a face-to-face survey technique. Seven factors (gender, training experience, education, access to media, previous involvement in road accidents, residence and high-skilled job) in the Probit models were found statistically significant. According to the empirical results, victims with training experience, higher education, access to media and previous experience of road accidents were more aware of road accidents and acquired more knowledge on traffic rules. Our study findings suggest that the victims who live in a rural area or have a low-skilled job were less likely to have knowledge of traffic rules compared, to the victims who live in an urban area or have a high-skilled job. Moreover, males were likely to be more aware of RTAs than females.