Publication Details
Realizing a safe system: The role of language in the transition [Technical Session 6: Building a healthy traffic safety culture]
Type: conferencePapers
Author(s): LaJeunesse, Seth
Pages: 43-44
Publisher: AAA Foundation
Publication Date: Sept-2024
Address: Washington, DC
Abstract: Policymakers and transportation professionals seldom know what people most desire from their transportation system. Instead, they interpret the world through metaphor. For example, transportation professionals draw from biology when describing large, multi-lane facilities such as arterials, which evokes images of arteries in the human body. They also borrow from physics when they reference traffic flow, as though people traveling in groups are particles floating through vacuous space. These metaphors provide language frames that do not reflect objective reality. Rather, they shape our understanding of reality, emphasizing some aspects, while obscuring others. Frames, in turn, often obscure the way we think about social issues. When how most others think about an issue is hidden from us, we can feel alone in our beliefs, which might lead to us to conceal our concerns about issues, such as climate change. Our research team discovered that in North Carolina, about 44% of survey participants mistakenly believed others prioritized avoiding congestion more than they actually do. These findings should not be surprising, as a sizable number of local news stories frame traffic injuries as 44phenomena that delay traffic. The problem is, equating traffic injury to travel delays pits people’s inherent concern for the wellbeing of their families and communities with their desire to dominate space and time via swift transportation. This internal values conflict can sow widespread indifference to road trauma. Needed are communicative strategies that appeal to people’s pro-social values, connect these values with Safe System visions, speak to the social benefits of safety solutions, and propose actions to express support for safety improvements. Each of these elements are at the core of the Johns HopkinsUniversity-University of North Carolina-AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety-developedValues-Solutions-Action messaging framework, which emphasizes that realizing a Safe System future is possible and would benefit everyone in sundry ways.
Conference name: Safe Mobility Conference 2024
Conference_proceedings_title: Proceedings of the Safe Mobility Conference 2024