PREDISPOSING-PERSONAL FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH PASSENGERSAFETY AND SAFE RIDINGBEHAVIORS AMONG CYCLISTS (BODA BODA RIDERS) IN KAMPALA

Background: Motorcycle taxis are common means of transportation in Uganda and sub-Saharan Africa which remains a major neglected public health issue that presently at any time constitutes risk for road traffic accident and injuries in low and middle income countries. This study describes the level of predisposing-personal factors associated with passenger safety and safe riding behaviors among cyclists (bodabodariders) in Kampala and the relationship between age, educational attainment and the risk of road accident. Methodology:The study design was a cross-sectional survey using a validated semi-standard questionnaire to collect data on predisposing-personal factors and safe riding behaviors measured on a 31 and 24-point reference scale respectively from 422 consenting riders in the metropolis. Data from the study was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) and simple descriptive statistics such as means, standard deviations, and proportions were used to describe the data all in 95% confidence interval and Analysis of variance was employed to test differences in measures across age and level of education with a cut-off set at (p≤0.05) significance level. Results: The findings showed thatmajority of the respondents were between age of 25 and 29 (35.5%) where most of them (36.0%) had secondary educational attainment. The mean score for the level of predisposing-personal factors measured on a 31-point reference scale among respondents in our study was 23.9 (CI =23.60 ± 24.20) denoting a prevalence of 77.1%while the mean score for the safe riding behaviors as measured on 24-pointscale was 9.3 (CI =9.10 ± 9.60) which translates to prevalence of 38.8%. The study further revealed that older respondents and riders with non-formal education inconsistently reported lowest scorefor predisposing-personal factors (F=3.54, p=0.007 and F=14.49, p<0.0001), whereas older respondents and riders with tertiary educational attainment constantly displayed lowest scores for safe riding behaviours (F=14.86, p<0.0001 and F=7.15, p<0.0001). Conclusions: The level of predisposing-personal factors associated with road safety and safe riding in terms of knowledge about passenger safety, perception of risk on road accidents and health consequences as well as attitudes toward safety rules and safe riding among respondents in the study is relatively high but the level of their safe riding behaviors is low and quite unsatisfactory.Thus, this calls for education and training exercises by the regulatory agencies on the initiation of safe riding behaviorsamong riders for knowledge without practice is useless.