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?   

  Driver Education: the secret to safer highways.   7/18/00 10:16:08 PM

  Reply and Question to Education Advocates   7/19/00 12:26:56 PM

  Safety campaigns will only go so far   7/19/00 3:29:19 PM

  Increased Awareness of the Need for Safety   7/20/00 5:38:58 PM

  Appreciating the Privilege of Driving   7/20/00 9:57:10 PM

  Educator's response to Joan Harris, Moderator   7/24/00 10:09:27 PM

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

  I agree with Mark Renn   7/26/00 4:38:21 PM