Safety Campaigns & Public Education

  Have you changed how you use your cell phone in your vehicle because of a safety tip you saw or heard?   

It is great to see the many people who have logged on and are suggesting, in different ways, that educating the public, and specifically drivers, will be the answer to dealing with the increasing numbers of electronic gizmos and other in-vehicle features that are showing up in new cars. All of these have the potential to distract drivers, and drivers need to learn how to use them SAFELY, under the proper circumstances, without jeopardizing themselves and others.
My question to the public: what do you think is the best way to reach drivers, to teach them about the safe use of these potentially distracting devices? What would be the most effective, economical, practical ways of promoting safety, especially in light of the huge array of devices that are now on the market?

Many drivers don't understand how dangerous a car can be. Fortunately, most of us don't witness very many traffic accidents, so we assume there aren't many. My family recently traveled to South Dakota, where each location on the highway where there has been an accident is marked with a small sign. The signs look like the ones that mark underground cables, but most of them say THINK! At the location of a fatal accident, the sign says WHY DIE? I was surprised that there were so many signs. Traffic is much more sparse than where I live and people didn't seem to be driving differently. I suppose that if my state used similar signs, I would be surprised about how many of them there are. Safety will not become an issue for drivers until they realize they are vulnerable. The signs would help as part of an overall safety awareness and education program.

To paraphrase what I wrote in a comment yesterday, being without the luxury of being able to drive will put the entire matter in perspective. In general, as human beings, we do not realize how good we have it until we DON'T have it. When one has to rely on public transportation, expensive cabs, or friends or family members to get where one has to go, one develops an INSTANT appreciation of the privilege of driving. Perhaps returning to the 1970s' oil shortage days when we were not permitted to drive one day a week would be a good idea. And a penalty of automatic permanent revocation of one's license for DUI, DWI, and intentional reckless driving. A concerned citizen who does appreciate the privilege of driving.

I agree with Isaac Rose that education is important, especially supported by enforcement and engineering. However, I believe there is a major problem with training and education as they are now deployed. No matter what technologies are available to drivers, or how the technologies are managed, the responsibility is still on the driver to allocate attention effectively. Driver training and education programs, as we know them today are, I believe, inadequate in preparing individuals for this part of the driving task for two reasons: they're focused on basic preparation for a license test; and the philosophy behind training and education is flawed. The flaw lies in the fact that the entire structure is developed around the concept of accident reduction -- teaching drivers not to crash! Apart from the problem that this is a near impossible task, given the psychology of driving safety and the limited training time most beginners get, it cuts off the prospect for the development of more sophisticated content. Consequently, driver education has not developed over the years as a resource for the experienced driver. The public think of follow-up training/education in terms of "refresher" courses which "remind" them of what they learned as beginners. There is nothing out there to convince them differently, and the barrage of simplistic public safety awareness information (slow down, signal your turns, don't tailgate, etc.) reinforces this thinking. A driver who is using a cell phone or checking information on a screen on the dash will probably slow or otherwise try to reduce demand from the traffic environment. But the comfort level drivers achieve in this way likely takes into account only a low-level relationship with the driving environment. For some drivers, simply not crashing is proof enough that they are doing OK! More sophisticated drivers would likely reduce the load even more in a given situation, or even pull out of traffic altogether. This decision would be based on an enhanced perception of performance and traffic dynamics. In other words, being more critical of their own driving, drivers would notice their drop in performance and adjust accordingly. If they do this it will be because they are more perceptive about what is going on around them, have a better understanding of traffic dynamics, and are aware how much their performance drops off if they don't moderate their taskload. The above is not an argument that public awareness messages and driver education programs don't work. It's an argument that the producion of more sophisticated drivers through training and education can have many benefits, including safer use of new technologies in the vehicle without resorting to draconian laws. Dan Keegan, Drivers.com

Very well said. I agree 1000%.

  Can public education and training about the safe use of in-vehicle technologies (e.g., cell phones, navigation systems, etc.) increase safety?   

I agree absolutely with the comments that we need better driver education and training. In California the state government cut funds for driver training and education in public schools some years back. What a foolish attempt to save money. The state would save a lot more money if there were fewer crashes! One problem we have is that car makers glamorize outrageously dangerous and illegal behavior in their advertisements. This affects people's attitudes towards driving, perhaps more so than any public education campaign because the advertisements are so much more prevalent. I get very agitated when I see ads that use the theme "You are in a race every day" or "Everyone races around town". Other ads encourage people to drive as an emotional release, or to enter their comfy cars to isolate themselves from the world. These are not good approaches to safe driving. I would like to see NHTSA work with auto makers to portray only safe, legal and intelligent driving on their advertisements.