Trans Scan: a global scan of emerging trends in mobility and the built environment

Training brains for safer roads

COULD computer-based “brain exercise programs” help create a new breed of safer drivers? Some US insurance companies believe they might and have launched studies to discover if there is any relationship between “brain exercise” and a reduction in road crash insurance claims.

One insurance company, Allstate Corp, is now inviting 100,000 Pennsylvanian motorists aged between 50 and 75 to take part in free “brain fitness” exercises in the hope that the program will improve their visual alertness and mental abilities while driving.

In fact the Chicago Tribune reports that Allstate views brain fitness programs as “potentially the next big breakthrough in automobile safety”.

The program being tested is similar to one already being promoted in Australia by organizations like Alzheimer’s Australia WA.

The software was originally developed by the US-based Posit Science Corporation to improve memory and attention in older adults. A company media statement in April said that tests conducted by the University of Southern California and the Mayo Clinic had found that one group of participants aged over 65 had more than doubled their mental processing speeds after 40 hours training during an eight-week course.

According to Posit, the same group “saw gains on standard measures of memory and attention of 10 years, on average”. “These changes were big enough that participants reported significant improvements in every day activities (such as remembering names or understanding conversations in noisy restaurants,” the company said.

(Participants were drawn randomly from 487 healthy adults. Half were assigned to the brain fitness program, the other half spent a similar 40 hours spread over eight weeks “learning from educational lectures set on computer and followed by quizzes”. According to Posit, the second group showed improvements but only those who took part in the brain fitness program achieved improvements of “clinical significance”.)

In the motoring trial participants will be taken through five computer exercises including one designed to improve visual processing speed. In the exercise, participants are taken along Route 66 from California to Illinois while being asked to spot various cars on the road as well as road signs on the edge of the screen. For reasons of privacy, Posit says it will not give the insurance company individual results - only the number of hours that each individual has spent on the course.

The insurance company is now measuring if there are claim reductions among those who took the full brain training.

The scan also showed:

Recession and the road toll

Is the recession, plus periodic leaps in petrol prices, and the consequent switch to public transport, having an impact on the road toll? Australia, Britain and the US are now all reporting significantly lower levels of road deaths and injuries and some observers are convinced that economic trouble is a key factor.

“The silver lining in a bad economy is that people drive less and so the numbers of deaths go down,” says Adrian Lund, president of the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “Not only do they drive less but the kinds of driving they do tends to be less risky - there’s less discretionary driving.”

New figures on Australia’s road toll from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government show that in 2008, 1464 people were killed in road crashes - 8.7% down on the previous year and a big improvement over the five-year average annual decline of 1.4%. (Western Australia performed better than average with an 11.1% decline - second behind South Australia, which was down 20.2%.)

Meanwhile US figures for 2008 have shown a 9.1% fall with some 37,313 people killed in road crashes over the year. The US figures were the lowest since 1961.

In Britain provisional figures for the 12 months ending September 2008 show fatalities down 15%. People killed on UK roads numbered 2610.

Better signs

Although older motorists tend to avoid driving during rush hours, in bad weather and at night, their risk of injury per kilometre still rises with age. In part the increase can be put down to the fact that age brings frailty and any crash is likely to have serious repercussions. But there is also growing evidence that standard road infrastructure is not as safe for ageing baby boomers as it may be for the thirty-somethings.

A group of Canadian researchers have been reviewing literature on the subject and have come to the conclusion that much could be done to make roads safer for the over-65s. In particular they recommend improving conditions at primary intersections where older motorists can have problems “selecting safe gaps” to turn across on-coming traffic.

In their report, “Senior drivers and highway design”, the researchers say that design features which would assist older drivers at all intersections would be "improved sight distance, designated turn lanes and more legible and consistent street and road name signing.”

The group also found that some traffic signals - used primarily in the US - actually cause confusion. For example, a green and red flashing light to indicate to the driver that they can turn across the traffic if there is a gap safe enough to do so. Because of the confusion, the group is recommending that this piece of traffic signalling be discouraged altogether.

Drunken pedestrians

According to researchers from Adelaide University’s Centre for Automotive Safety Research there is no easy way to stop drunken pedestrians being killed and injured on the roads. The research team has just completed a detailed literature review and determined that with the possible exception of a well-enforced statutory limit on blood alcohol levels in public places, no single preventative measure would reduce the road toll among intoxicated pedestrians.

The team thinks the best solution is just to make roads safer for all pedestrians - drunk or sober. “The measure that would be expected to have the greatest effect quickest is a reduced speed limit, especially in locations where traffic is busy and there are many pedestrians,” their report says. A copy of their report, “Accidents to intoxicated pedestrians in South Australia” can be downloaded here.