What Do Novice Drivers Learn During the First Months of Driving? Improved Handling Skills or Improved Road User Interaction?

A well documented fact in road safety research asserts that novice drivers are at particularly high accident risk, and that the risk is substantially reduced with increased experience. The paper presents three hypotheses about what novice drivers learn during the first months of driving. They are: (1) Hazard perception. Driving experience increases the ability to identify early warnings of possible dangers in traffic, making drivers able to take precautionary actions sooner; (2) Better car handling skills. Driving experience increases gradual automation of handling skills in operating the car, and thus reduces the risk of potentially dangerous errors; (3) Improved interaction with other road users. Better understanding of the social interaction among road users and the informal rules of this interaction, results in better adjustments to other road users, and makes one's own behavior more predictable to others.. This paper reports the results concerning hypotheses 2 and 3. The results of the hazard perception tests will be published elsewhere.

[1]  S Fosser,et al.  AUTOMOBILE AGE AND RISK , 1998 .

[2]  T. Lajunen,et al.  Driving experience, personality, and skill and safety-motive dimensions in drivers' self-assessments , 1995 .

[3]  S Stradling,et al.  Errors and violations on the roads: a real distinction? , 1990, Ergonomics.

[4]  T Bjornskau.  Why are the 'safest' norms, attitudes and types of behaviour not typical for the safest drivers? , 1996 .

[5]  A K Lund,et al.  A review of the literature evaluating the Defensive Driving Course. , 1985, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[6]  T. Rothengatter.  Normative behaviour is unattractive if it is abnormal: relationships between norms, attitudes and traffic law , 1991 .

[7]  L. Åberg,et al.  Dimensions of aberrant driver behaviour. , 1998, Ergonomics.

[8]  Torkel Bj⊘rnskau.  Why are the ‘safest’ norms, attitudes and types of behaviour not typical for the safest drivers? , 1996 .

[9]  I D Brown,et al.  Assessing one's own and others' driving ability: influences of sex, age, and experience. , 1989, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[10]  Nikiforos Stamatiadis,et al.  Causal Factors for Accidents on Southeastern Low-Volume Rural Roads , 1999 .

[11]  Dianne Parker,et al.  Driving errors, driving violations and accident involvement. , 1995, Ergonomics.

[12]  Daniel R Mayhew,et al.  Changes in collision rates among novice drivers during the first months of driving. , 2003, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[13]  Gerald J.S. Wilde,et al.  Social Interaction Patterns in Driver Behavior: An Introductory Review , 1976 .