Abstract
Drivers' massive disobedience to traffic laws. Heteronomous versus inter-individual norms. A functionalist approach still prevails in road safety research, its main assumption being that a minority of drivers, characterised by certain traits, are to be blamed for a majority of road accidents. An interactionist approach opposing this view follows, presenting the observation of traffic laws in terms of two sociomoral reasoning systems: the heteronomous system (enforcement) and the inter-drivers system. The main hypothesis is that drivers currently think of traffic law disobedience in terms of a driver-police matter, completely missing an inter-drivers sociomoral dimension that could have a greater impact upon their behaviour. We have attempted to bring in this sociomoral dimension by means of a 2 (driver/non driver) x 2 (in-group infraction high vs low) factorial design. It is concluded that a meaningful accident reduction could rest in the introduction of a new anchoring of the norms on principles regulating drivers' interaction.
