Main Content
Highlights
Using psychology to create better drivers
Psychologists look set to take an increasingly important role in designing programs to cut the road toll. Although the profession has long researched road safety, there is now a marked trend towards proscribed psychological interventions both here and overseas.
The Australia Transport Safety Bureau has used psychological assessments to develop a series of recommendations to help cut the crash rate among motorbike riders. At the same time Victoria is experimenting with psychological interventions to keep P-plate drivers out of trouble.
In the US separate studies have found “safe cars” could be encouraging more risk taking (See “Causes of recklessness”) while at the same time there is evidence emerging in California that women are beginning to exhibit the same bad driving behaviours as men. (See: “Female drivers”)
In Europe the Continent’s largest bus company, Arriva, has introduced psychometric assessments for its new recruits so that any of their pre-existing errant driving behaviour can be “overcome” during the training program to drive buses.
“The principle is that when you administer a psychometric assessment what you are doing is trying to highlight the extent to which people believe certain things, how they feel about certain things and how they will generally behave towards, in this case. traffic,” says psychologist Dr Lisa Dorm who devised the intervention.
Since Arriva introduced the program four years ago, fatalities involving company buses have reduced by 31% she says.
Now Britain’s Driving Standards Agency is examining the possibility of using similar psychometric tests to assess the attitudes of all young would-be drivers.
At Nottingham University in England psychologists are hoping to identify ways of preventing novice drivers from becoming distracted. Right now a team of psychologists is trying to identify just how widespread the problem is.
“One of the main differences between novice and experienced drivers is that novices tend to want to look either straight ahead, or down at the dashboard, while experienced drivers pay more attention to their surroundings rather than their own car,” says Dr Lyn Jackson one of the researchers.
Meanwhile Australian psychologists have found that young children see a lot of bad driving on their way to school. Apparently numerous parents break speed limits when making the school delivery run. (See “Dangerous behaviour”.)
The scan also found:
Dangerous behaviour
Do parents speed when they drive children to school? Are drivers of new cars more prone to dangerous road behaviour? Associate Professor Ian Glendon of Griffith’s University’s School of Psychology says “yes” to both questions. He has just conducted an extensive study of driving behaviour in Queensland, NSW and Victoria and discovered that observational surveys can throw up a number of findings that are counterintuitive.
“The study found that youth is not the only predictor of dangerous driving,” Prof. Glendon said. “Drivers of newer model cars, drivers with multiple passengers and non-commercial drivers were all more likely to speed.” One explanation for speeding in new cars might be that it is simply “easy to do”. As for speeding parents, Prof Glendon’s explanation is that it could have something to do with time pressure and the parent’s efforts to squeeze in school transport with other activities. But Prof. Glendon does have a solution to one observed problem—tailgating. At any one time, he found that 23% of those breaking road rules were driving too close to the vehicle in front. He would like to see markings on the road to indicate what is a safe traveling distance.
Passenger distractions
Professor Glendon’s observations that cars with multiple passengers are more likely to speed (see above) in interesting in light of a separate study by the George Institute for International Health at Sydney University. It has found that drivers carrying two or more passengers are twice as likely to crash as unaccompanied drivers. The George study was designed to compare the risks involved in carrying passengers compared with that of the driver making a mobile phone call.
According to the study’s lead investigator, Dr Suzanne McEvoy, carrying passengers is potentially as distracting as making a mobile phone call. In fact drivers with passengers were almost 60% more likely to have a motor vehicle crash resulting in hospital attendance, irrespective of their age group.
“The likelihood of a crash was more than doubled in the presence of two or more passengers,” Dr McEvoy said. Nonetheless, the study found that passenger-related risk is considerably lower than risks associated with driving while on the phone.
Causes of recklessness
Is it simply an urban myth that people who drive “safe” cars take more risks? US research into the behaviour of American racing car drivers suggests there may be some truth to the story. Professor Russell Sobel of West Virginia University has wanted to discover whether the country’s various car safety regulations had resulted in fewer road crashes.
But he found road laws and weather conditions across America too variable to produce a meaningful answer. So instead he made a study of 25-years-worth of crash data from the country’s NASCAR racing car circuit. What he found was that despite more safety features, racing cars were getting involved in more crashes. “It’s well known that NASCAR fans like to see the excitement of an accident,” says Prof. Sobel.
“So, with safer cars, drivers will take more risks and they will have more accidents—but the safety measures will cause the number of injuries to decrease.” If he is right, are safer car going to lead to more road crashes? “Obviously NASCAR drivers are different from regular motorists,” Prof. Sobel says. “On the other hand ask yourself this question: ‘Would you drive more carefully if your car was less safe, say it had no seatbelts and a dagger protruding towards your heart from the steering wheel?’” Prof. Sobel believes that today’s motorists are actually responding to safety improvements by driving more recklessly.
Solo agreements
The Accident Research Centre at Monash University is distributing an information booklet for parents to help them guide teenage sons and daughters through their hazardous year as P-plate drivers.
According to the centre, probationary drivers are involved in more crashes than any other driver category. In fact they are 33 times more likely to be involved in a crash than a learner driver. According to Dr Jennie Oxley who devised the booklet, it is designed to highlight to parents the risk factors that make P-platers so vulnerable and encourage parents to have their children sign “Vehicle Access Agreements”.
For example, one section of the agreement has the youngster agree that for the first three months, he or she will only drive between 6am and 10pm and not carry any passengers aged between 16 and 23. Copies of the document, “Going Solo” can be downloaded at http://www.monash.edu.au/muarc/goingsolo.html
More rest areas?
Australia’s truck insurance company, National Transport Insurance, want road authorities to build more rest areas to help battle driver fatigue.
After a detailed study of 404 major crashes involving client vehicles in 2005, the company has found 57% of the incidents could be attributed to driver fatigue and “inappropriate speed”. “Driver fatigue is an issue and assistance must be given to drivers who strive to balance a safe work environment with a tough job that every Australian relies on,” the company’s industry affairs manager, Owen Driscoll said.
“For the sake of road safety, government agencies must take action regarding the shortage and inaccessibility of rest areas.” Mr Driscoll said traditional thinking about fatigue being due to excessive time at the wheel is challenged by the study with over 63% of claims occurring within 500 kilometres from the point of departure, thus highlighting the need to monitor fitness for duty at the start of a journey,” he said.
Disrupted sleep
Bad sleeping habits can also cause a driving hazard, according to research conducted by the University of British Columbia. Researchers with the university’s Sleep Disorder Program have found that people with sleep apnea are twice as likely to have car crashes and “three to five times” more likely to have a serious crash involving personal injury. Women with sleep apnea suffer the same crash rates as men with similar medical histories.
Flashing signs
Road authorities in Tel Aviv are experimenting with “smart” road signs designed to reduce dangerous driving at uncontrolled intersections. The signs themselves will start flashing at offending motorists if computer-controlled video cameras monitoring the scene calculate that the motorist’s actions could cause a collision.
The concept was devised by Dr Yotam Abramson of Technion, Israel’s institute of technology, after observing that most Israeli motorists appeared to ignore or at least do not appear to notice “Stop” signs. Now he is working on another concept of his to create “smart” traffic lights. His idea is that if a “smart” traffic signal spots a motorist jumping a red light, it will delay the green light for the cross traffic. Of course at the same time, a camera will also photograph the offending driver.
Female drivers
Research by California University’s Department of Emergency Medicine suggests young American women are beginning to exhibit the same bad driving habits as young men.
The result, according to Dr Virginia Tsai, is that women are involved in an “alarming increase” in fatal crashes related to alcohol use and the failure to wear seatbelts. Dr Tsai said the figures began to show up in Californian road statistics between 1995 and 2004. “When combined with other factors such as cell phone use while driving and distractions from other teenagers in the car, the trends for young women are not positive,” she says.
