The effect of education level on traffic deaths.

A lot of research has been done into the causes of traffic fatalities. The existing literature on this subject states that it is mainly due to driving behavior of participants in traffic, national or local policy and the economic state of an area. In addition, solutions such as specific policy making, campaigns and firm enforcement of the law in the event of traffic violations are proposed. However, little is known about the degree of influence of education levels on the number of deaths. Sami and Najafi (2013) concluded that this factor is indeed related to road deaths for the Fars areas. The number of road fatalities dropped significantly in the case of an increase in education levels. This thesis elaborates on this field by analyzing the previous mentioned effect between European countries and regions. The provided data from Eurostat and the European Insurance Database is used to show the extent to which the educational level of European countries influences the number of accidents. Furthermore, this study looked into whether this effect can be better interpreted after adding a proxy for driving behavior. The results indicate that an increase in education level did significantly reduce the number of traffic road fatalities. This applies to both the countries and the four regions in which Europe is divided (Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western-Europe). However, this paper could not provide any clarification with regard to driving behavior for Europe.