A portrait of European car drivers: the SARTRE project
SARTRE is an acronym for ‘Social Attitudes to Road Traffic Risk in Europe’. The SARTRE group started to look at safety on European roads in 1991 by conducting the same driver surveys in each country. The first SARTRE study was conducted in 15 countries, the second, conducted five years later, was expanded to include 19 countries. The latest, called SARTRE 3, was carried out in 23 countries. Each country surveyed around 1,000 drivers so that, in total, approximately 24,000 drivers were interviewed. The surveys provide information on driver attitudes, behaviour and experiences (e.g. of enforcement activity) and therefore provide an excellent opportunity to compare drivers in different countries and identify measures that could improve behaviour and safety both in individual countries and throughout Europe.
The SARTRE 3 surveys show that most drivers are concerned about road safety, recognise that driver behaviour is a very important factor in contributing to road safety and also report that they frequently engage in dangerous and illegal behaviours. The results of the SARTRE study can be used when preparing, planning and implementing European or national road safety programmes.
SARTRE was funded by the European commission and national promotions, in Austria by the “VSF - Österreichischer Verkehrssicherheitsfonds”. KfV (Austrian Road Safety Board) was responsible for the Austrian part of all three SARTRE-surveys.
