The comparison of road safety survey answers between web-panel and face-to-face; Dutch results of SARTRE-4 survey

• Comparison road safety survey results between face-to-face sample and online panel
• No evidence that online respondents come from socially privileged groups
• Answer differences between the 2 surveys mostly small to moderate
• Online survey generated less socially desirable answers
• Online respondents tended to make less use of extreme answer categories

IntroductionIn the Netherlands, a comparison of an online and a face-to-face sample of car drivers was made to study differences on a number of selected questions from the SARTRE-4 road safety survey.ResultsContrary to expectations, there was no indication that online respondents were more likely to come from higher educated or more privileged social groups. Confirming earlier research, the results indicated that online respondents were less inclined to give socially desirable answers and were less inclined to use more extreme ratings in their opinions about measures. Contrary to expectations, face-to-face respondents did not tend to give more positive answers in judgment of road safety measures. Weighting to make samples comparable on gender, age, and education had almost no effect on outcomes.ConclusionsThe implications for a transition from face-to-face survey to online panel method are discussed.