COHORT STUDY OF LEARNER AND NOVICE DRIVERS. PART 4: NOVICE DRIVER ACCIDENTS IN RELATION TO METHODS OF LEARNING TO DRIVE, PERFORMANCE IN THE DRIVING TEST AND SELF ASSESSED DRIVING ABILITY AND BEHAVIOUR

This is the final report of a series of 4 reports covering a major study of about 29,500 drivers who took the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) driving test on 2 days in November 1988 and 2 days in July 1989. The analyses reported have aimed to determine whether there are any statistical associations between the accident liability of drivers in their first three years of driving and (i) aspects of the way they learned to driver, (ii) errors recorded by the driving examiners during the driving test, and (iii) the driver's assessment of their own driving abilities, their self reported behaviour and their personal driving style. Significant associations have been found for some drivers between accidents and prior motorcycling experience, the duration of the learning process, the number of test attempts, the amount of professional tuition taken, and the amount of practice with friends and relations. The errors drivers made on test - in particular errors of awareness and anticipation - do seem to be associated with accident liability in the first three years of driving. Novice driver accidents are also associated with some aspects of self assessed driving abilities. In addition, various aspects of self reported behaviour - notably errors of perception and awareness, violations, and measures of driving style - were found to be positively associated with accidents in the first three years of driving. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of their potential for improving driver training. (A) (For parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series, see IRRD 848006, 850454 and 869392).