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Driver/Education - March, 1993 LOOKING FOR EVIDENCE THAT DRIVER EDUCATION WORKS By Dr. Peter F. Lourens In Strassbourg, France, in May 1991, I presented a paper to the International Association of Driver Educators (IVV) that offered two conclusions: These conclusions were based on the facts that, in many countries, only 50% of learner drivers pass the test on the first try; and that new drivers are over-represented in crash statistics during their first two years of driving. Without blaming any group, it seems modern society is doing a poor job and is unwilling to do anything about it. As a researcher who is questioning the quality of driver education, I have been told repeatedly by superiors and colleagues that it's very difficult to put forward proposals in this field. Both the practitioners and the responsible authorities prefer not to invest in research that might show the weak points of the prevailing system to the world. You can understand that I'm unhappy about this situation and in this paper I will give it another try: Can driver education, in one form or another, be effective in terms of improving traffic safety? There is very little research to answer this question. A recognized expert, Professor Ivan Brown of Britain's Cambridge University, has reached strong conclusions on this. Professor Brown and his colleagues (1987) found no experimental studies that provide sound evidence on the relationship between driver training and accident involvement. They also found that most earlier research on the topic is suspect on methodological grounds. In later research (1989, 1992) Brown found that there's no reliable evidence on the benefits of training for road safety. He also found "there is little hard evidence on the desirable content or process of driving instruction." I appeal to those who are really interested in the question of the effectiveness of driver education to unite and produce the sound evidence that's lacking. To get this evidence we need:
The point of departure for our program is that psychology teaches us the necessity to train and educate (young) people in safe driving performance. In our society, any human being starting to engage in performing a new and complex task gets training and education. Driving can't be the exception. As a point of departure for our research program we need to know three things:
A basic law of psychology is, "People learn by doing." At the most primitive level this involves a process of conditioning reflexesÑlike the dog that begins to slaver at the sound of the food tin, or the driver who turns his head in the direction of the horn. At a somewhat higher level, people learn by association (a red light triggers the impulse to stop, for example). Typically human is learning by understanding. People learn best when they understand why something is worth doing in a certain situation. In learning a complex psychomotor task such as driving a car, learning proceeds from higher levels to lower levels in what is commonly accepted to take place in three phases:
WHAT IS SAFE DRIVING PERFORMANCE?
The strategic level involves knowledge of things like available modes of transport, choice of routes, average time needed to get to destination, etc. This knowledge is used consciously in making driving decisions. The tactical level involves the type of roadway, speed, and other relevant rules. Tactical tasks are performed by applying and routinely following rules. The operational level involves appropriate use of the controls, and this is accomplished with skills we use automatically, without conscious thought. We must keep in mind, however, that the relationships between task levels and behaviour types are not constant and, in particular, not the same for all drivers. A strategic route choice, for example, may be made totally automatically, and is thus skill-based. An operational act of braking may be carried out on a knowledge basis by a beginner driver.
TO SUMMARIZE:
The issue of what's the best way to teach driving is much discussed but not yet resolved. To me, it's absolutely clear that we need to send drivers to school. To driving schools, that is, which can give them a safety-based training course. But again, I come back to Professor Brown, who has stated, "We do not yet know how to train safe driving behaviour that will persist through the early years of driving experience." In other words, the traditional systems for driver training do not contribute enough to traffic safety. As an alternative, Brown proposes " ... a graduated system of compulsory training and testing ... within a series of reducing legislative constraints on exposure to risk." In conclusion, I would like to present a broad outline of a project that can produce the evidence we are waiting for. The project plan is to form an international research group, supervised by IVV, to do a comparative study of driver education systems. The goal is to prove that driver education is cost effective if it reaches a specified level of quality.
THE PLAN
1. Define what good driver education is (which components, which content, which teaching processes).The final things we need are the money to carry out this plan, and the people with relevant expertise. Who can help?
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