Citation

Okyere P, Agyei-Baffour P, Harris MJ, Mock C, Yankson IK, Donkor P, Owusu-Dabo E. Int. J. Inj. Control Safe. Promot. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/17457300.2022.2056617

PMID

35389822

Abstract

Many road traffic injuries in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are to bus passengers. We sought to determine the availability, functionality, and observed vs. self-reported use of seatbelts in large intercity buses in Ghana. We observed seatbelt use for 1,184 passengers in 35 large intercity buses. We interviewed a separate group of 633 bus passengers. All buses observed had seatbelts and most (92.6%) were functional. A little over a fifth (21.6%) of passengers were observed to wear seatbelts. However, 34.5% of passengers in the self-reported survey indicated always wearing seatbelts when riding in buses. Passengers on 5 buses out of the 35 observed where the driver verbally prompted them to wear seatbelts were more likely (57.8%) to wear seatbelts than on the other buses (15.3%, p = 0.001). Comparing the self-reported survey with observations, passengers tended to overinflate seatbelt use by a factor of 1.6. This study provides useful information for efforts to increase and monitor seatbelt use among large intercity bus passengers in LMICs.

Language: en

Keywords

bus; observation; passenger; Seatbelt; self-report