Traffic Communication as Determinant of Motorist Behaviour

Abstract

Motorists are communicated to in the road traffic environment by graphics, the level of clarity of which elicits correlating responses. The study observed motorist behaviour at a selected location, Briscol Y-junction in Kumasi, Ghana, which is typical of a visibility phenomenon. Motorists related independently to a gantry at the junction. Concealed passive neural processes precipitating motorist behaviour hardly gained consideration by traffic authorities. Consequently, negative reinforcement (as occurs in operant conditioning) robbed the motorist reason for his actions. The subsequent driving behaviour of the motorist is affected by the adjudication of traffic laws which rigidly considers inhibitory schemata as an infringement of the law. The study makes an exposition on the passive cause of traffic conflicts traceable to poor traffic communication. The paper hypothesizes on whether driver behaviour arising out of poor graphic traffic communication (GTC) may have an impact on road safety. Using observation as a qualitative phenomenological research method, motorist behaviour at the junction was examined. The psychological theory of operant conditioning propounded by BF Skinner was applied as a yardstick of probing motorist behaviour at the Briscol Y-Junction. This was complemented by the Schema Theory of motorist actions. A strata of 320 motorists who drove past the red light exhibited different behaviours traceable to their visibility level of GTC supported by their previous knowledge of the traffic environment. It was found that traffic management is unmindful of the concealed psychological, biological and neural processes that occur in the motorist as the cause of traffic conflicts. It was recommended that to help maintain motorist composure in subsequent driving situations, traffic audit and management should first ensure that all traffic communication features are properly situated and oriented at all times.