Why the government should be blamed for road safety

The government plays an important role in road safety. However, the effectiveness of the government in the context of road traffic accidents (RTAs) is rarely measured quantitatively. This study aims to quantitatively examine the effects of government regulation on human and organizational factors. A contributing factors classification framework of RTAs is presented based on the human factors analysis and classification system, one of the most popular systems approaches. A total of 405 major RTAs was collected over a 20-year period (1997-2017) in China and analyzed through the structural equation model. The results lead to two main conclusions: the frequency of inadequate regulation, which has reached 343, is the highest frequency among all contributing factors; government regulation exhibits significant effects on organizational influences, unsafe supervision and unsafe behaviors. These findings provide a new perspective for accident prevention that can be initiated by the government in policy-making and regulatory activities.