What should be taught? Basic vehicle control skills or higher order skills?

VTI särtryck

Nr 269 + 1997

What Should Be Taught? Basic Vehicle

Control Skills or Higher Order Skills?

Nils Petter Gregersen

Reprint from Proceedings of the First Annual International

Symposium of the Youth Enhancement Service, Los

Angeles, USA, June 8 11, 1995: New to the Road:

Reducing the Risks for Young Motorists, pp 103 114

_{Swedish National Road and}

Nr 269 ' 1997

What Should Be Taught? Basic Vehicle

Control Skills or Higher Order Skills?

Nils Petter Gregersen

Reprint from Proceedings of the First Annual International

Symposium of the Youth Enhancement Service, Los

Angeles, USA, June 8 11, 1995: New to the Road:

Reducing the Risks for Young Motorists, pp 103 114

New to the Road: Reducing the Risks for Young Motorists

International Symposium, June 8-1 1, 1995

Los An eles: Brain Information Service/Youth Enhancement Service, UCLA, 1995

What Should Be Taught? Basic Vehicle

Control Skills or Higher Order Skills?

Nils Fel/er siege/sen

Swedish Road & Transport Research /n.9f/7 ure

i/n/(ep/ng, Sweden

Abstract

Driver training is one of the most important measures to reduce accident involvement among young drivers. Traditionally, driver training has focused on vehicle control skills and trafic rules without reaching far enough in the efforts to provide risk awareness and other higher order skills. Driver training aiming at optimizing safety must be based upon an analysis of what factors and processes contribute to the drivers accident involvement. These factors may be described in three groups, the learning (skill acquisition) process, the individual preconditions and the social in uence. The purpose of this presentation is to analyze these three groups of processes and to discuss their implications for driver training. One important conclusion is that we ought to put more e ort in teaching higher order skills and risk awareness and that it is of high importance that this is done through practical in-car training. The learner driver must experience the dangers of driving, his/her own limitations, lack of experience, in uence ofpeers, etc. For this purpose, examples of in-car risk awareness are presented.

Introduction

A simple answer to the question in the title is "both". A more complex answer must, however, be given when the question "How?" is added.

When we discuss strategies for driver training aiming at increased safety, the discussion must be based on an analysis to determine what problems contribute to the accident involvement of drivers.

Young drivers' accident involvement is related to several factors of educational, psychological and social nature. Several theories are available to explain the nature of these relations.

During the learning process, the driver is expected to become familiar with the driving task, skilled in handling the car and able to drive in a safe way. This learning process may be described as a skill acquisition process as in the theory of Rasmussen (1984) or Anderson (1982). It may also

be described as a feedback process which influences what motives will be important for the choice of driving style, as described by Näätänen and Summala (1976). A third aspect of the learning process is the relation between subjective and objective skill. It is commonly known that young drivers, especially young men overestimate their driving skill more than older drivers. It has also been shown that the over-estimation can partly be explained by the choice of teaching strategy (Gregersen, in press).

In addition to these processes involved in becoming a driver, there are also other social and individual factors related to driving behaviour and accident involvement.

The complicated nature of young drivers' driving behaviour and accident involvement and the experiences from driver training efforts have recently been reviewed and discussed in several different reports (e.g., Lynarn and Twisk, 1995; Gregersen and

Bjurulf, in press; Smith, 1994; Catchpole et al., 1994;

Horneman, 1993). A short overview will be presented in the next section.

Prob/ems rela/edlo the learning

process

A common model for explaining why experience reduces accident risk states that the novice driver passes through several phases according to how he can handle the large number of tasks involved in driving. The novice driver faces many new situations and tasks, all of them demanding cognitive resources. The perceptual situation is new and demands speci c patterns of visual search and interpretation of what is happening in the surroundings. The novice driver cannot handle the situation as well as the experienced driver. The car in itself also demands cognitive capacity, with a variety of controls, levers and warning devices that must be used and co-ordinated in a complex pattern. The whole traffic environment with its rules and demands on speci c behaviour also adds up to the demands on cognitive resources.

With time, however, more and more of these tasks will be automated and the mental workload will be reduced. This assumption has support, not only in findings concerning visual search patterns (Mourant and Rockwell, 1972) but also in studies of prolonged reaction time (Quimby and Watts, 1981).

According to Rasmussen (1984) the development of a skill includes such a process of automation. In his theory, he describes three levels of human performance: skill-based, rule-based and knowledge based level. Skill-based behaviour represents sensimotor performance which in its developed form characteristically proceeds without conscious attention or control. Rule-based behaviour consists of compositions of sequences of subroutines that are consciously controlled and goal oriented by a rule that has been derived empirically or from other people's know-how. At the knowledge-based level, explicit goals are formulated and solutions are evaluated through functional reasoning, where the internal structure of the system is explicitly represented by a mental model that may take several different forms. When learning a skill, according to Rasmussen, the final stage is the skill level, where automated routines are based on synchronization and optimization of the problem. During the rst phases of skill acquisition, the activity will be controlled by separate cues that are de ned individually and related to rules controlling very elementary acts. As skill develops, cues of more global nature will be adopted and rules will be related to activity patterns rather than single acts. Finally, the whole task is automated and performed without conscious awareness as long as unexpected deviations do not occur.

If this theory is applied to car driving, a typical feature of the first stage of learning to drive is the

importance of formal rules and the instructions given by the teacher (Brown et al., 1987). As more and more tasks are integrated and automated, attention will be directed towards interaction with other road users. Behaviour at this stage will still be heavily rule-based. In the nal stage, the formal rules and the control skills will become more integrated and the signals from the traf c in itself will provide more and more guidance for driving behaviour. In this stage, more and more tasks may be carried out simultaneously, since they do not demand so much cognitive capacity.

In spite of the fact that many studies have shown or discussed the meaning of mental workload for the driving task, the speci c meaning for young novice drivers is unclear. Experienced drivers have been shown in some studies to perceive risk situations quicker than novice drivers (Soliday and Allen, 1972; Ahapalo et al., 1987; Quimby and Watts, 1981; Finn and Bragg, 1986), which supports theories of automation and mental workload. The studies of Mourant and Rockwell (1972) indicate that young drivers' shortcomings in visual searching are caused by high mental workload. In later studies by Miltenburg and Kuiken (1990), an unsuccessful attempt was made to replicate the findings of Mourant and Rockwell. The hypothesis that visual search strategy changed with experience could not be veri ed.

Although a large amount of research has been carried out in the general field of visual search, a relatively small part deals with the driving task. Some

results are reviewed by Åberg (1981) showing that

there are certain processes that are related to experience. He describes "predictive head movements" which means that the head is moved prior to initializing of eye movement when tracking a target presented in the peripheral positions. Mourant and Grimson (1977) found that experienced drivers use more predictive head movements than novice drivers do, which indicates that novice drivers do not use their peripheral si ht as effectively as experienced drivers do. berg also reviews the literature on the perceptional automation process, which is probably closely related to the automation process of driving behaviour described above. Perceptual automation is explained as a process where repeated experience with stimuli leads to automatic detection. In environments where the stimuli do not change very much, drivers may turn to automatic perception and thus lose their conscious scanning for critical events, such as wild animals.

This is in line with Aberg's assumption that when the

attentional field is directed towards oncoming vehicles, the driver may miss the detection of an animal even when he is looking straight at it. This

process was also shown in an experiment by Åberg

Gregersen

for moose detected a dummy moose more often than when driving normally without this instruction.

One approach to young drivers and their risk behaviour is to study how they estimate their own ability to handle risky situations. An assumption is that young drivers have poor knowledge of their ability in this sense. They overestimate their ability. This is a reasonable hypothesis, taking into account normal behaviour among teenagers, especially young men in the middle of their "liberation" process.

The most common way of measuring self-estimation is by questionnaires. Drivers have been asked to estimate their ability compared to other drivers (Svenson, 1981; Moe, 1984; Firm and Bragg, 1986; Matthews and Moran, 1986; Gregersen, 1993; McGormick et al., 1986). Traditionally, this type of study shows that young drivers consider themselves to be better than other drivers. The pattern has also been shown to be most typical among young men.

The conclusion drawn in these studies is that young drivers are poor at estimating their own ability and thus judging risks adequately. They underestimate the risks and overestimate their skill as drivers. It is obvious that there is a relationship between estimated risk and estimated ability. If a driver believes that he is a skilled driver able to handle a dangerous situation, the situation is no longer equally dangerous. From an educational point of view, these ndings are complex, since the drivers are not motivated to drive more carefully than they believe is necessary. It also makes matters complicated since a probable outcome may be that drivers reject theoretical information about risks, using explanations such as "It's only a problem for others, not for me as I'm so clever". Several studies have shown that young drivers choose to behave more dangerously (Jonah, 1986). They drive faster (Wasielewsky 1984; Wilde, 1982; Galin, 1981; Koneci et al., 1976; Michels and Schneider, 1984; Quimby and Watts, 1981). They also drive in ways that increase the probability of con icts with other drivers. Evans and Wasielewsky (1983) showed that they drive with smaller following distances, which is supported by Lalonde (1979) who showed that young drivers are involved in more rear-end collisions. Young drivers also use safety belts less often (Nolén, 1988; Lacko and Nilsson, 1988; Fhaner and Hane, 1973; Evans et al., 1982; Wilson, 1984).

Several of these behaviour patterns are combined. It is often the same drivers who drive fast, with small safety margins, more violations, greater alcohol consumption, etc. (Evans et al., 1982; Deutsch et al., 1980; Lawson and Arora, 1982; Wilson and Jonah, 1985).

The significance of overestimation has also been shown in an experiment to determine how different educational strategies influence overestimation

105

(Gregersen, in press). The study was carried out to test the hypothesis that skill oriented training would produce more overestimation than training oriented towards the driver s insight into his own limitations. Two randomly distributed groups of learner drivers were given these two types of training and were asked to estimate their ability in a specific driving task. Their estimation was compared with their actual ability and thus the accuracy of their estimation could be calculated. Drivers in the group with skill training were found to have a significantly higher overestimation of their ability, but no difference was found in observed ability. The conclusion from this study was that driver training ought to be complemented with practical training that makes the driver realize his own limitation. This strategy for driver training was tested in an experiment at the Swedish telephone company, Telia, and was found to have a large accident-reducing effect compared to a control group (Gregersen et al., in press).

The estimation of oneself as better than others may be a result of two kinds of values, either a "positive self" estimation or a "negative other" estimation. Regarding the possible consequences of the estimation of behaviour, it is important to calculate their proportions. This has been done in a study by McKenna et al. (1991) where drivers were asked to estimate themselves as well as the average driver on separate scales. Since the average driver received an estimation above the middle of the scale, the conclusion was that he was not estimated as poor. The personal estimation was even higher, supporting the common idea that it is probably a matter of "positive self" more than "negative other". In another study McKenna (1993) experimentally tested whether the personal underestimation of the probability of encountering negative events was due to an illusion of control or unrealistic optimism. He concluded that there is "clear support for the illusion of control and little support for unrealistic optimism".

When it comes to the relation between motives and driving behaviour, there are two kinds of relevant motives. There are motives for why we drive and motives for how we drive. Both these kinds of motives in uence our driving behaviour. One example of the motives for why we drive is that we want to transport something from one point to another. It may, however, also be that we just find satisfaction in driving as such. We drive simply for the purpose of driving. This may be a matter of purely individual motives such as pleasure, relaxation, etc., but it may also be a question of social motives influenced by subjective norms, role expectations or group pressure.

The border between these motives and motives guiding how we drive is indistinct. The motives for how we drive include matters such as safety, economy and environmental care. Other examples

include showing off, testing limits or competing with other drivers.

The in uence of these motives on driving is governed by the reinforcement connected with the behaviour. The relation between motives and reinforcement is not uncomplicated. Most of us want to drive safely. The problem is to de ne what this implies in actual behaviour. For the individual driver, it is not very difficult to draw conclusions about driving style. The problem is that the individual easily draws false conclusions. A driving style that is statistically dangerous may not be considered dangerous by the driver as an individual. If a driver exceeds the speed limits, the most probable result will be that he is not stopped by the police, that no accident will happen and that he will arrive at his destination faster. The reinforcement helps him to draw conclusions about individual safe driving that counteract safety in a statistical sense.

The safety motive may be regarded as a "negative" motive. The reinforcement is either neutral or negative. There are never any immediate rewards if a driver tries to drive safer. As soon as the negative reinforcement fails to appear, the motive may be regarded as satis ed. The absence of accidents is the normal state and thus there are limited possibilities of reducing accident involvement from the individual point of view. The same pattern is valid for avoiding police checks. As soon as this is avoided, and thereby also the punishment, the motive is satis ed.

On the other hand, the mobility motive and several other motives may be regarded as "positive" motives. It is possible to achieve a reward. If I drive fast, I will reach my target quicker. Fast driving may also give positive reinforcement regarding the pleasure motive, etc.

The conclusion is that a driver who feels that the safety motive is adequately satis ed will choose a driving style that, without jeopardising his individually estimated personal safety, will give an immediate reward regarding as many other motives as possible, such as mobility, competition, self-assertion etc. Most of these motives contradict safety, but some of them, such as driving with high comfort, driving economically or driving to save the environment, will probably improve safety as a secondary effect.

These types of phenomena have been studied and discussed by many researchers. Näätänen and Summala (1976) stress the importance of motivation for driving behaviour. They claim in their "zero risk theory" that drivers normally do not sense any risk when driving and thus the safety motive may be regarded as satis ed. Other motives, such as time reduction, competition, adventure seeking etc., the so called "extra motives", will make the driver drive faster and faster. Safety measures, such as improved cars, roads or drivers, may fail to reach the goal of

improved safety, since the driver will always tend to make use of the extra margins, not for increased safety, but for other motives, often resulting in higher speed.

These mechanisms are often used to explain the lack of effects of different kinds of safety measures,

such as driver improvement programmes

(Struckman-Johnsson et al., 1989), driver training programmes

(Schuster, 1969; Utzelmann and Haas, 1985;

Drummond and Torpey, 1985; Kadell, 1987), motorcycle driver training (Simpson and Mayhew, 1990), defensive driving courses (Lund and Williams, 1985), skid training (Glad, 1988), advanced driver training (Williams and O'Neill, 1974), anti-lock brakes (Biel et al., 1991), children's voluntary safety club for children (Gregersen and Nolén, 1994), road maintenance and zebra crossings. A general discussion of these aspects, including a review of the theoretical literature, is presented in the OECD report on "Behavioural adaptation" (OECD 1990).

Social Influence and Individual

Preconditions

Part of the young drivers' problem concerns the fact that they are actually teenagers. Young people are in the middle of a process where they are about to liberate themselves from their parents etc., and assert themselves as grown-ups and independent individuals. This effort can be demonstrated in different life styles as well as in group af liation, role expectations and varying degrees of social dependence. The importance of subjective norms in the driver's decision process has been described in several applications of the Fishbein and Ajzen theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). Within general social psychology, there is a high level of knowledge concerning social development and interaction, but research into its application to young drivers and their driving behaviour is very limited and highly focused on the problem of alcohol. Marthiens and Schultze (1989) have described the importance of leisure activities for young driver accidents and overrepresentation of reports on "disco accidents". It was also found by Klemenjak and Hutter (1988) that two groups of teenagers visiting discos could be identified; the "disco fans", who spend the whole evening at the disco, and those who visit the disco spontaneously later in the evening. The second group is described as the most unsafe since they drive longer distances and their decision to go to the disco is more often taken after consumption of alcohol.

One example of an aspect sometimes regarded as personality-related and sometimes as part of the

socialization process, is "adventure-seeking" or

"sensation seeking". By using Zuckerman's "Sensation seeking scale", Moe and Jensen (1990)

Grgersen

have shown that there is a relation between sensation seeking and accident risk. The same kind of results were obtained by Beimess and Simpson (1991) in their comparison of a group of drivers involved in crashes and a group not involved. In their study, they also found an overrepresentation of smokers and drinkers, persons with less than 8 hours of sleep per night, persons with dif cult relations with parents, teachers and other adults, and persons with other problem behaviour.

The relation between life style and accident involvement has also been shown in a Swedish study (Gregersen and Berg, 1994) and a German study (Schultze, 1990). The Swedish study is a questionnaire study and shows that there are special high risk and low risk groups according to life style. A typical feature of the highest risk group is that they seldom take part in sports activities, they often drink alcohol and become intoxicated, they often drive for "extra motive" purposes and have a great interest in cars. They are often "out and about". The majority are men. The study de nes a number of different lifestyle pro les that vary in accident involvement.

The German study of life style and accidents, in which young drivers were interviewed, shows a similar pattern. Although the sample was too small to find any signi cant covariations with accident risk, there were tendencies pointing to the high risk groups "action type", "fan type" and "non-conforming type". The correspondence between the results from the two studies is relatively high.

The Swedish study also suggests a relation between lifestyle and driving habits, i.e., time of day, driving purpose etc. This type of relationship is also supported by the accident-reducing effects of curfew systems for young drivers in different countries, mainly the USA (Preusser, et al. 1984; Levy, 1988; Williams et al., 1985).

To some extent, these findings support the "problem behaviour theory" of Jessor and Jessor (1977) and the ndings of Beimess and Simpson (1991) suggesting that risky driving covaries with other kinds of problem behaviour, such as heavy drinking. However, the Swedish authors also identi ed high risk groups which do not t their model.

It has also been shown in several studies that young drivers are more influenced by alcohol than others. They are not overrepresented as drunk drivers in traffic, but they are overrepresented in accidents where alcohol is involved (Glad, 1985; Mayhew et al., 1986; Donovan et al., 1983).

Driver Training

Research and experience in the area of young drivers has led to a much better understanding of what types of factors contribute to their accident

107

involvement. Some of these aspects which have been discussed brie y above concern the learning process, while others concern individual and social factors. Many of these problems may be dealt with through special approaches in educational measures.

Most of the effort throughout the years of driver training has been applied to skill training. Thus, there is a long tradition of teaching learner drivers how to drive and manoeuvre the car in traf c and of learning the traf c rules issued by the authorities. Even if there is still some disagreement on aspects such as non-professional teaching, licence age limits etc., it may be concluded that this kind of formal skill training is well developed in many countries and should thus not have first priority for further improvement. The state of the art shows a number of aspects that probably offer higher potential with respect to safety improvement and several of these may be dealt with through driver education and training. However, We have not by any means reached a perfect situation when it comes to formal knowledge about rules and car manoeuvring. There are certainly gaps in this respect among drivers. In an investigation among drivers in Ontario (Matsui et al., 1991) several gaps in knowledge were revealed. In some respects, young drivers were more likely to have inadequate knowledge than drivers in general. In other aspects, however, knowledge among young drivers was better.

Many innovations have been introduced in driver training during recent years. Some countries have introduced different types of graduated licensing where the driver training is divided into different phases according to the dif culty of the driving task. In other countries, the age limit for driving practice has been lowered. Both these measures deal mainly with the experience factor. The purpose is to gain the necessary experience before the driver sets off on his own behind the wheel.

The main idea behind the system of a prolonged practice period used in Sweden, Norway, France, Belgium and other countries is to increase experience when driving with an instructor. With two years of experience before licensing, one of the main hypotheses is that the learner will be able to use his

cognitive resources better and thus become a safer

driver. In Sweden, this new system has also had an effect on other educational strategies. Since the age limit has been lowered, it is now possible for secondary schools to participate in driver education. Many schools have now included driving instruction and practice in their curricula.

In a Norwegian study, 28 learner drivers who we re permitted to practice from 16 years of age were followed during their training period. The age limit for licensing was 18. Their evaluation of the training programme, including several mandatory parts, was positive, but it was shown that they did not make full

use of the opportunity to drive and practice. Most of them blamed this on a lack of time (Moe, 1992).

Evaluations of graduated licensing systems have been reviewed by Smith (1994). In evaluations of American, Canadian and New Zealand systems, accident reductions between 5 and 16% were found.

In Norway, an evaluation of a two phase graduated system failed to show any accident reducing effect (Glad, 1988). Instead, Norway has now changed to a system similar to that in Sweden. The Swedish system has a two-year practice period between the ages of 16 and 18. The licensing age is 18 years. An evaluation of the Swedish system is being carried out at VTI (Gregersen, 1991).

There is also a discussion as to whether or not non-professionals should be allowed to be driving instructors, and different countries have made different decisions. However, it has not yet been proved that either of these strategies is superior with respect to safety. Allowing non-professionals as instructors is seen as yet another possibility to gain more experience during the learning period. Some of those who reject the idea of non-professionals claim that they may damage driver education by teaching the wrong facts and wrong attitudes. Which of these standpoints is correct depends to a large extent on whether of these is the tendency to overestimate skill and another is the motivation for safe driving. Also other contributing aspects, such as individual preconditions and the social in uence, may possibly be addressed through education, although not with the purpose of changing personality, lifestyle or social relations, but rather to make the learner driver aware that these factors contribute to their accident involvement.

The overall purpose of making the driver aware of risks may be one approach in seeking further improvements in young driver safety. The risk-awareness problem is already included in driver training in many countries and awareness of the need to address this problem is high. However, it is quite common to address the problem in a theoretical way, which means that it is included in textbooks but not explicitly covered in practical training. This is probably unsatisfactory, since there is a tendency to use explanations such as "It's only a problem for others, not for me because I'm so clever," especially among drivers who tend to overestimate their own cleverness.

One important reason why the problem is not systematically handled in practical training is that there are few good practical methods for improving risk awareness and other cognitive skills. The traditional method of practical driver training is to practice on roads where it is very uncertain whether a risk situation will occur or not. An important task is thus to develop practical methods of making the driver aware of aspects such as his own and other

road users' limitations, lack of experience, the overestimation problem, the feedback and risk compensation process, etc.

In practice, this means that the learner driver should be placed in situations where he is shown that his own decisions were based on aspects such as overconfidence or risk compensation. It is probably extremely important for these behaviour decisions concerning safety margins, speed, stopping distance, etc., to be made by the driver himself, so that he is not given any opportunity to blame anyone other than himself for his failures during this practice.

From a theoretical point of view, the purpose of such training to create insight should be to distinguish between skill acquisition and risk awareness (or between operative and tactical behaviour). If applied to the skill acquisition theory of Rasmussen, the operative tasks of driving should be developed to the final stage of automated skills, but the tactical decisions should be made consciously on the rule based level. The training strategy of practical insight creation thus aims at developing mental models and rules that include possibilities of critical situations and accidents.

The individual and social factors contributing to accident involvement may also be dealt with through education, as suggested above, not by trying to change these fairly well established background factors as such, but rather by trying to make the driver aware of their importance. The problem may be described theoretically through textbooks also concerning these aspects, but this may easily lead to the same kind of reactions as in the case of overestimation and risk compensation, i.e., "It's not my problem". Another way is to make the drivers belonging to a high risk group realize that they demonstrate some of these risk-increasing factors themselves. In this process, it may be possible to in uence the way in which they use the car, such as reducing the motives for using the car as an instrument in the liberation process or as a toy. There is still, however, much work to be done in developing such methods. Adjusting self-diagnostic techniques in combination with group discussions aiming at personal decisions may be one possible way (Gregersen et al., in press). Starting at lower ages to educate and in uence young people about car usage, transport needs, driving motives, etc., may be another method.

Suggestions for Applications in

Practical Driver Training

From a practical point of view, these suggestions must be translated into actual driver training. This may be done in many different ways. To make the discussion above a little more understandable and applicable, a number of factors contributing to

Gregersen

accidents will be listed and examples of practical applications in driver training will be suggested. Some of the examples are also illustrated.

Owe/estimation atown drian ski/lin

relation to physicallaws

Practical training in how physical laws influence the movements of the car. The purpose is to make the learner driver realize that physical laws do not always influence his driving in the way he expects.

Examples with stopping distance:

The student drives a car equipped with a special stopping distance meter. The equipment makes a yellow dot on the road surface when a signal is given (i.e., a photo flash). When the driver touches the pedal, a second yellow dot is made on the surface (Figure l). After stopping the car, the learner driver can walk back and see for himself his own reaction distance, braking distance and total stopping distance. The distance is often much longer than expected. The test can be made at different speeds, on different surfaces and with different cars, tyres, brake systems etc. (Lindqvist, 1986; Gregersen, 1993)

Figure ]

The use of a stopping distance meter

109

Figure 2

Drawing a line on the windscreen

l)

Wind screen line Braking distance Reaction distance

Braking dmrancc

Ar.

Reaction distance

en,

Color dots on the road '

An additional feature of this test is to place a bigger marker where the car stopped and then back the car to the first yellow dot. From this point, the learner driver can see the marker which shows the total stopping distance. The teacher draws a line on the windscreen exactly on the level where the markers are seen. The line can then be used in further practice to adjust driving style. Everything in front of the car that is below the line is too close with regard to the stopping distance (Figure 2).

A test that is more specifically directed towards overestimation on low friction could be carried out as follows (Figure 3). The learner driver is asked to drive at 40 km/h and brake as hard as possible at a given spot. He is asked to register the stopping distance. In a second step, he is asked to estimate how long his stopping distance will be on a parallel track with low friction. He is asked to put a fairly large soft rubber obstacle where he believes he can stop. Finally, he is asked to perform the test and see if he is underestimating the distance. Many learner drivers do (Gregersen, 1993).

Ova/estimation atown driv/ng ski/lin

relation to sudden criticalsituations

This practice aims at making the students aware that they cannot always rely on their manoeuvring skills in a critical situation.

Examples with suddenly appearing obstacles: A teacher is sitting in a parked car and the learner and another instructor are driving in another car. The instruction is to practice shifting from high to low beam. The task is performed when passing the parked car. The learner drives along a Circular route and the instruction is repeated. This time, however, a dummy (a cylindrical object of soft, black coloured material) is placed in the way of the learner's car. He discovers it too late and runs into it (Figure 4). The teacher promptly starts a

Figure 3

Estimation of stopping distance on ice

.

.

discussion about the problem and helps the learner to draw the right conclusions about his own skill and limitations, his choice of speed etc. (Gregersen, 1993; 1994)

Figure 4

Running into an obstacle in darkness

In another example, an inflated dummy car of natural size is used as an obstacle. In a situation where the learner is not prepared, the dummy car is pulled out in front of the student's car and the student runs into it (Figure 5). This accident experience is very dramatic and may increase the learner's awareness that his skills cannot be relied on when events happen so quickly (Nolén et al., 1995).

Figure 5

Running into an inflated car

Learner Obstacle

få...

""

pd)

Overes/ima/ion o/poss/bi/i/ies lo

manage wilhoul safe/y equiomen/

Young drivers are also overrepresented among those who do not use a seat belt. In these parts of the training the aim is to make the driver aware of the need to use a belt. '

Example of seat belt usage:

The learner driver is invited to try special simulator equipment running into a "wall" at 7 km/h. The purpose is to make him feel the forces involved at this low speed (Nolén et al., 1995). The advantages of a seat belt may also be shown in a demonstration of a real collision. In our application, a car is crashed at a speed of 50 km/h in the VTI crash laboratory. The driver-dummy does not use a seat belt but the passenger-dummy does. The crash is video-taped. The learner drivers are shown the video and they are also given the opportunity to examine the

real crashed car. They can see the damage to the unbelted "passenger" who was thrown through the

windscreen (Nolén et al., 1995).

look ofexperience, high men/al

workload

The purpose of this part is to make the driver aware of his problems in complicated traffic situations where he must make several decisions almost simultaneously.

Example of awareness in complicated situations: The test is performed on a track where low friction is simulated. The track has a hidden area behind a hill. The learner driver is instructed to drive along the track at normal highway speed. When approaching the hill, there are two signs warning for road works. On the other side of the hill, he will meet two other signs informing him of the driving direction, one "normal" and one contradictory due to the construction situation. Two inflated cars are parked along the track. When the student reaches the hill, a mobile telephone rings in the car (Figure 6).

The situation becomes extremely complicated and most of the students have some kind of "black-out" reaction, crashing into the signs, obstacles, etc.

lack ofexperience, limitations in

visualsearch pa em

These tests are used to show the learners their limitations in visual search.

Example of visual search and wild animals: The test is performed on an average sized forest road approximately 2 km. Along the road, 5 different dummy animals (deer, moose, hare) have been placed quite close to the road and perfectly visible from a car (Figure 7). The student does not know anything about the

Figure 6

Demonstration of mental workload in a

complicated driving situation

phone ringing

Gregersen

ll]

animals. He is told to drive the road in a normal speed, which is approximately 70 km/h.

After completing the 2 km he is asked how

many of the dummies he has seen. A normal answer is "none". He is asked to drive along the road again at the same speed and point out all

the dummies he detects. A normal result is 2 3

out of 5. The third time the instructor points out all the dummies. The test illustrates the search pattern of the novice driver and may be used to make him aware of this problem (Gregersen, 1993).

Figure 7

Detecting animal dummies along the road

t? _1 ':', 1... ' |

- I

lifestyle, persona/fly efo.

These tests are used to make the drivers aware that they belong to high risk groups with regard to personal and social preconditions.

Example of self-diagnostics, group discussion and personal decision:

Young drivers are gathered in groups of 6 8. They start with a self diagnostic test including aspects such as age, sex, lifestyle, driving habits

and personality. Each driver can see if he/she

belongs to a low risk or a high risk group. In a second step, the drivers discuss why some are high risk drivers and others are low risk drivers. How are the components of the diagnostic test related to risk? To help them, they may use accident statistics or individual cases of accidents which specially illustrate the role of driving

habits, lifestyle etc. In a third step, the discussion is focused on what the drivers can do to minimize their risk on the road and nally, each driver is asked to make a personal decision about how to change his/her behaviour towards better safety.

Socialinfluence, group pressure

Example of the influence ofpassengers:

The learner driver is asked to perform a driving test on a driving track. Different driving tasks may be chosen, for example to make an avoidance manoeuvre on a low friction surface. The task is carried out with passengers in the car. These may be parents or friends depending on what is to be demonstrated. The passengers have been instructed in advance to put pressure on the student and tell him that he should show the instructor how skilled he is. This persuasion should take place when the student is accelerating towards the obstacle. The driver will be in uenced so that he probably drives too fast and fails the avoidance test.

The driver is instructed to drive a second time at a lower speed where it is possible to handle the avoidance task. The student is helped to draw the right conclusions and the passengers are also told about the problem of social in uence.

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E-mail: nils.petter.gregersen@vti.se

Mailing address: Mailing address: Dr. Nils Petter Gregersen, Swedish Road and Transport Research Institute, S-581 95 Linköping, Sweden.