London: Nine in ten people feel safe during their everyday road journeys, but fewer than half of the professionals responsible for designing, building and operating mobility systems share that confidence, according to new research by Economist Enterprise supported by Brembo.
The report, Safety in Motion: Driving Trust in Modern Mobility, identifies a potentially dangerous divide between public perception and actual road-safety performance. The gap is particularly wide in Brazil, China and India—three markets where public confidence is highest despite comparatively poor road-fatality records.
Economist Enterprise surveyed 6,157 respondents across Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US between April and May 2026. The markets together account for about 75% of global vehicle production.
The study included 5,135 members of the travelling public and 1,022 professionals working in vehicle manufacturing, mobility technology, infrastructure and transport policy. Respondents were distributed evenly across the ten countries.
The press release says 45% of transport professionals expressed confidence in the safety of mobility systems, although a separate key-findings section of the report places the figure at 42%.
With almost 1.2 million people dying in road crashes globally each year, the researchers argue that misplaced confidence may itself have become a road-safety risk. A driver who believes the system has everything under control may be less inclined to keep both eyes—and occasionally common sense—firmly on the road.
“The research makes clear that road users are far more confident in the safety of their daily travel than mobility experts. This is a serious concern,” said Jean Todt, UN secretary-general’s special envoy for road safety. “Trust is essential for mobility, but overconfidence can cause people to take unnecessary risks.”
India, China and Brazil Record the Widest Trust Gap
The sharpest difference between users and professionals was recorded in Brazil, China and India.
Across these three countries, 94% of road users said they felt safe—the highest confidence level among the surveyed markets. Only 18% of transport professionals agreed, producing a 76-percentage-point gap.
The three markets recorded a combined average road-fatality rate of 16.2 deaths per 100,000 people, roughly twice the study average.
“In Brazil, China and India, public confidence has grown alongside rapid, visible modernisation—new infrastructure, smarter vehicles, better technology,” said Pratima Singh, principal of policy and insights at Economist Enterprise, who led the research. “But confidence has outpaced actual safety performance. When people believe systems are safer than they are, they often do not exercise the necessary attention to keep them safe on the road.”
The findings suggest that visible improvements such as newer roads, connected vehicles and advanced safety features may increase confidence faster than they reduce actual risks.
Confidence Varies by Income and Generation
The study also found that perceptions of safety were uneven across income and age groups.
Low-income road users were nearly twice as likely as middle- and high-income respondents to report low or mixed confidence in their daily travel safety.
Millennials were the most confident generation, with 94% reporting high trust. Gen Z and Baby Boomers were more cautious, with 12% and 16%, respectively, expressing low or mixed confidence.
These differences indicate that road safety is shaped not only by vehicle technology but also by access to safe infrastructure, reliable transport and effective enforcement.
Driver-Assistance Systems Bring New Risks
Mechanical failure is no longer viewed as the main threat by mobility professionals. Only 3% identified it as the leading cause of safety problems.
Instead, 30% cited the misuse or misunderstanding of driver-assistance systems as the biggest source of mobility-safety incidents. Another 24% identified vehicle features that distract users from the road as the most serious risk.
Road users themselves ranked their own behaviour as their biggest safety concern.
The findings point to a growing challenge as cars assume more driving functions: users may not fully understand where assistance ends and personal responsibility begins. The technology may be getting smarter, but it has not yet found a reliable upgrade for human attention.
The report cited an assessment by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in which 11 of 14 partial-automation systems received poor ratings for safeguards intended to keep drivers engaged.
Experts Question How Safety Technology Is Advertised
Transport professionals also raised concerns about the way driver-assistance technologies are promoted.
According to the study, 65% believed advertising may overstate system capabilities, while 62% said marketing could imply that drivers need to pay less attention. Another 60% said promotional messaging tends to emphasise benefits while playing down technical limitations.
The report warns that such messages may lead drivers to place excessive trust in systems that still require active supervision.
It also argues that clearer and more consistent disclosure of system capabilities could help users distinguish between driver assistance and genuine automation.
Users Back Tougher Safety Rules
Despite their high confidence, 88% of road users said they would support stronger safety measures, including lower speed limits, greater use of speed cameras and stricter enforcement.
Respondents also indicated that they would be willing to pay more for safer transport systems.
However, 68% of mobility professionals identified poor coordination between regulators and industry as the biggest barrier to improving road safety.
The report cited estimates from the World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility indicating that road crashes impose annual economic costs ranging from 0.65% of GDP in the UK to 4.73% in China.
It also pointed to the International Road Assessment Programme, whose road-rating work has helped prevent an estimated 700,000 deaths and serious injuries across 74 countries, as an example of coordinated intervention producing measurable results.
“Closing the trust gap requires collective action across the mobility ecosystem,” said Matteo Tiraboschi, executive chairman of Brembo. “Industry must continue to innovate responsibly, policymakers must create effective regulatory frameworks and together they must help people understand both the capabilities and the limitations of new technologies.”
Four Road-Safety Trust Environments Identified
The research grouped the ten surveyed markets into four categories based on public confidence, professional confidence and road-fatality experience.
Brazil, China and India were classified as “trust optimists”, where high public confidence has outpaced safety outcomes.
Japan and South Korea were described as “trust guardians”, with the narrowest confidence gap—84% among users compared with 70% among professionals. Trust in these markets was linked to independent validation, institutional reliability and consistent performance.
France, Germany and Italy were categorised as “trust pragmatists”. These countries had the lowest fatality rates in the study but still recorded a 39-point difference between public and professional confidence. Users were also more sceptical of technologies perceived as opaque or exaggerated.
The UK and the US were labelled “trust negotiators”, with user confidence of 92% closely tied to faith in institutions. The report warned that regulatory failures or corporate cover-ups could therefore cause disproportionately large losses of trust.
The researchers said the differences demonstrate why a single global approach to road-safety communication may not work. Policies, enforcement and public education must reflect local culture, institutional credibility and road conditions.
“Today, people are not safe on the road. To address this silent pandemic, we need responsible innovation, effective regulation and serious investment. Trust on the road should not be a given; it must be earned. Research and discussion on road safety is important, but only action will save lives,” added Mr Todt.
As vehicles become more automated and mobility systems more complex, road safety will increasingly depend on whether human understanding keeps pace with engineering. The challenge is no longer limited to building safer cars and roads; it also involves ensuring that users know what technology can do, what it cannot do and when they must take control. Closing that gap may prove just as important as adding the next sensor, camera or line of code.
