Impact of Road Safety Education on Parents’ Willingness to Pay on Safety Equipment via Family Communication Pattern

Children are the most vulnerable road users as their physical body is small with limited experiences on the road. Parents are responsible to make sure children are being protected and safe on the road. The objective of this study is to investigate road safety education as a contributing factor in parents’ willingness to pay (WTP) on road safety equipment based on family communication patterns (FCP). WTP was measured in Ringgit Malaysia (RM) while four types of FCP are laissez-faire, protective, pluralistic and consensual. This is a descriptive quantitative intervention study and data was collected via a survey during the pre- and post-study. The sample comprised of 1,969 parents of primary school children from Year 1 to Year 6 who have been using the revised road safety education activity books during the pilot study. The result revealed that pluralistic and protective are two types of FCP with higher increment in WTP among parents on safety equipment to be used on their children during the post-study. Further analysis using paired sample t-test showed a significant difference was only found in pluralistic and protective FCP among Year 1 and pluralistic FCP among Year 5 students. The findings further explained that road safety education influenced the parents’ willingness to pay on safety equipment for their children based on the type of FCP practiced in the family.