Driving behaviour during flood and bushfire emergency evacuations

Insights from observational and self-reported data

Bibliographic Data

ID22025442
AuthorsSara Fazeli (0000-0002-3304-0039, UNSW Sydney, corresponding author), Taha H Rashidi (0000-0002-0673-5011, UNSW Sydney), Mohammad Mojtahedi (0000-0001-6942-0650, UNSW Sydney), Milad Haghani (0000-0003-3904-5196, The University of Melbourne)
Year2025
Volume131
Pages105905
Publication date2025-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2212-4209
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105905
OpenAlexW4416411208
LanguageEN
References cited63

Climate-related emergencies such as floods and bushfires are among the most prevalent natural hazards globally. During these events, individuals often drive to self-evacuate; however, doing so through floodwaters or bushfire-affected areas poses significant risks to both evacuees and emergency responders. Understanding the factors that influence driver decision-making in these situations is crucial, as it relates directly to pre-evacuation delays, compliance with evacuation orders, and the safety of volunteer rescue personnel. It also informs more effective risk communication and policy design. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach by integrating content analysis of self-recorded real-life driving videos with surveys and discrete choice experiments. It examines both strategic and operational dimensions of driver behaviour during flood and bushfire conditions. The video analysis captures driver actions, environmental cues, and emotional or verbal responses, while the choice experiment investigates how risk perception, environmental severity, social cues, and contextual factors shape the decision to proceed through hazardous routes. Findings suggest most participants prefer to avoid driving through flood or bushfire scenarios in hypothetical contexts. Environmental severity—such as floodwater depth or fire intensity—was the strongest deterrent. However, the perceived presence of other drivers emerged as a strong motivating factor. Observational data also show that driving mostly occurred when other vehicles were present. Younger and male participants reported greater willingness to drive in both hazards—a pattern also mirrored in the video observations. This dual-method approach offers new insights into emergency driving behaviour and holds practical value for shaping public messaging, emergency planning, and policy interventions during natural hazards

Flood myth · Natural disaster · Natural hazard · Observational study · Poison control · Psychological intervention · Disaster Management and Resilience · Evacuation and Crowd Dynamics · Flood Risk Assessment and Management · Human Factors and Ergonomics