Context

The effectiveness of driver training as a crash counter measure is the subject of ongoing debate. Those who teach drivers argue that improved skills improve safety. They say that the more skill a driving task requires the more training a driver should receive. Intuitively, this seems to make sense. However, the assumptions upon which this argument is based are not supported by the research.

The following statements are representative of research and literature. From these we can conclude that any attempt to train drivers, particularly in advanced skills, must be accompanied by a well-examined rationale.

• Advanced training aimed at increasing the vehicle control and handling skills of experienced drivers has not been shown to be effective in crash or violation reduction terms (Christie, 2001, p.23).
   
• no-one has come up with an evaluation that shows there's a benefit to advanced skills training… gains from training may be offset by confidence and reduction of safety margins… (Lord, 2000, pp.21-23).
   
• In a road safety context, skid-control and emergency braking are seldom required by drivers in everyday driving… under these circumstances, a driver trained in these skills is highly unlikely to retain them… drivers quickly forget those behaviours which they do not have to use regularly. Malaterre (1989), who tested the competency of experienced drivers immediately after advanced training, concluded there was little point in training these drivers in such skills as they did not retain them (Christie, 2001, p.29).
   
• Driver training and education programs targeting the development of hazard-related skills need to target driving skills that reduce the need to respond to a hazard rather than skills involved in responding once a hazard has occurred. The behavioural responses to emergency situations are almost certainly based on automated processes that depend on experience rather than education or knowledge, … (Harrison, 2002, p.10).
   
• … alleged benefits [of skidpan training] rest upon the assumption that a substantial proportion of crashes are attributable to a lack of vehicle-control skills: increased exposure to assorted manoeuvres on a skidpan will improve these skills and thus reduce accidents. However, again the evidence does not stand up to close examination: attendance at skid training programs has increased rather than reduced crash involvement (Langford, 2002, P.36).
   
• Naïve application of apparently straightforward logic would suggest that more skill will allow greater safety. After all, being able to avoid a crash in a 'tight situation' (a potential crash situation) may depend on emergency braking or fast, accurate steering around an obstacle, however, the data clearly disconfirms this view by indicating that driver training generally produces no safety benefit, or results in a significant disbenefit, as the following indicates. Evidence shows that in the USA the highest skilled drivers (registered race and rally car drivers) have a much higher crash rate than the average driver (Naatanen and Summala, 1976). Careful analysis of apparently successful skills training programs in reducing the road toll indicates that these programs often work when used as a prerequisite for a licence. Their effectiveness lies in deterring people from getting a licence not in increasing skill and safety (Job, 1999, p.22).
   
• … there is no evidence available to suggest that existing techniques of driver training can improve the accident record of young drivers… the international literature does not report significant road safety benefits deriving from driver training… traditional driver training programs have not produced useful results… (Horneman, 1993).
   
• If increased rates of crashing were due to lack of skill, then training and education would appear to be a natural countermeasure. Although there have been many studies of the influence of driver education on crash rates, none with acceptable methodology has shown that those who receive driver education have lower crash rates than those who do not (Evans, 1991, p.105).
   
• It is obvious that the results of this large-scale field experiment do not support the notion that improved driver education helps prevent accidents. In passing we may note that the same holds for post-licence defensive driving courses… Better driving skill - risk perception included - does not necessarily mean fewer accidents… Other studies too show that better driving skill is not associated with greater safety (Wilde, 1994).
   
• When validly tested for effects on crashes, attempts to teach safety have more often than not been exposed as not delivering improved safety at all (Staysafe-18, 1990).
• There appears to be no evidence that a driver or rider
    instruction course is an effective traffic safety measure (Saffron, 1982).
   
• General reviews of driver preparation or remedial education strategies have all noted that any benefits apparently derived from participation were attributable to the type of person receiving the treatment rather than the nature of the treatment (Drummond, 1989).
   
• A commonly held belief is that additional in-car training can increase road safety awareness in young drivers. Research in Australia and overseas does not support this contention (Hull, 1991).
   
• In the absence of evidence that driver training courses for novice drivers have any road safety benefits, and the possibility that skill orientated courses may increase certain traffic offences, it is not possible at this time to endorse proposals advocating compulsory driver training as being cost-beneficial (Staysafe-18, 1990).
   
• Training programmes have little effect on crash frequency; reductions in traffic violations are reported but tend to be temporary and or delayed; many programmes appear to successfully increase knowledge, some change attitudes but these do not translate into fewer crashes (Milech, 1989).
   
• It should not be a surprise that we find few reports on driver instruction programs that reduce crash frequency in newly licensed drivers. Furthermore, programs which do claim such effects rarely support their claims with rigorous evaluation… Attempts to develop new training procedures which are superior to the traditional approach have not always been successful. The addition of classroom based theoretical instruction and looking and learning from the passenger seat had no added advantage (Milech, 1989).
   
• Driver training and driver testing badly needs to be lifted out of the arena of wishful and woolly thinking. There needs to be less reliance on opinions, including the opinion of those whose experience is long but shallow participation in the field. Development needs to be based more heavily on valid research, and the final products need, as a matter of course, to be subjected to valid tests of their real effects on crashes (Staysafe-18, 1990).
   
• Thus the fact that there is no substantive theoretical foundation to the education/training approach (Saffron, 1982) presents the major problem. Given this real understanding of the driving task, driver education often reverts to series of global rules (Shaoul, 1975) …the gap between what is taught and what the driving task requires, taking into account the dynamic demands of traffic, the environment and the vehicle, almost guarantees that such education and training strategies will fail to meet their safety objectives (Drummond, 1989).
   
• The limited success of behavioural change techniques (including education) in modifying injury prevention behaviour is a result, in part, from failure to understand the determinants of injury behaviour and failure to apply properly the behaviour theory to develop effective intervention (Sleet, 1991).
   
• Police driver education shares with driver education generally an undue indebtedness to folklore and personal experience. The fact is that police driver training in Australia is scientifically uninformed (McGrath, 1991).

References

Christie, R. (2001), The effectiveness of driver training: a review of the literature, RACV, Literature Report No 01/03, Noble Park, Victoria.

Drummond, A.E. (1989), An Overview of Novice Driver Performance Issues: A Literature Review, Monash University Accident Research Centre, Melbourne.

Evans, L. (1991), Traffic Safety and the Driver, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.

Harrison, W.A. (2002), What can parrots tell us about acquiring hazard perception skills? Conference Proceedings, Developing Safer drivers and Riders, The Australian College of Road Safety, Mawson, Australian Capital Territory, p.10.

Horneman, C. (1993), Driver Education and Training: A Literature Review, (Research Note RN 6/93), Road Safety Bureau, Roads and Traffic Authority, Sydney.

Hull, M. (1991), Mandatory Hazard Perception as a means of reducing the road toll amongst Novice Drivers, (Discussion paper No. 0 7306 1390 9). VICROADS Road Safety Division. Melbourne.

Job, R.F.S. (1990), The Application of learning theory to driving confidence: the effect of age and the impact of random breath testing, Accident Analysis and Prevention. Vol. 22 No. 2 pp. 97&endash;107.

Job, R.F.S. (1999), The Road User: The Psychology of Road safety, Safe and Mobile: Introductory Studies in Traffic Safety, Emu Press, Armidale.

Langford, J. (2002), Using the research to reduce novice driver crashes, Conference Proceedings, Developing Safer Drivers and Riders, The Australian College of Road Safety, Mawson, Australian Capital Territory, p.36.

Lord, P. (2000), Advanced blindness: Advanced driver training produces safer drivers, right? Maybe, maybe not, say the experts, Wheels Magazine, pp. 21-23.

Milech, D. D., Glencross, D. and Hartley, L., (1989), Skills Acquisition by Young Drivers, University of Western Australia, Perth.

Näätänen, R. and H. Summala, Road User Behaviour and Traffic Accidents, 1976. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co.

Saffron, D. (1982), Driver instruction: some future research directions in driver training - Steering a course for the future, Transport Regulation Board, Melbourne.

Sleet, D., Egger, G. and Albany, P. (1991), Injury as a public health problem, Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 2, pp.4-9.

Staysafe 18, (1990), Steering novice drivers towards safety, Parliament of New South Wales, Sydney.

Wilde, G. J. S. 1994, Target Risk, PDE Publications and Castor & Columbia, Toronto.

Links

Guard against promoting optimism

Don't rely on driver training.