How to make novice drivers crash

[Darren]

http://www.advanced-driving.co.uk/essen ... nsibility/

This article shows how the high crash risk of novice drivers is rooted in what adults do.

It is tempting to seek in every crash a way to just ‘blame the kids’, and perhaps begin to wonder whether they should be allowed to drive at all. But there are specific ways in which adults increase their crash risk and contribute to the carnage that disturbs us.

Unless this is accepted and addressed, reform of driver training will continue to make no impression on reducing novice casualties.

[ROG]

I had this e-mailed to me and it is thought provoking

[vonhosen]

The EU (including the UK) have a project in relation to this.

http://www.cieca.be/hermes_en.pp

[waremark]

That short piece on the Hermes project does not seem to focus on the same aspects as the piece posted by Darren - which presumably comes from Steve Haley of Mind Driving?

If you take away the broader societal aspects from Steve Haley's piece - which are too far outside the scope of any project on novice driver training to address - you are left with a need to move the balance of novice training away from car control and towards thinking skills. I have long believed that there is a strong case for inclusion of road sense education in the national curriculum for 11 to 14 year-olds - it has to be done at an age where opinions are easily formed, and before being tied up with car control issues. But I can well imagine it being done badly, in a way which does not advance road safety. Just look at how much effort and money went into hazard perception testing, which is now being recognised as a failure.

I hope that when and if it is done it will be done intelligently, and carefully piloted before being expanded widely.

I take comfort that my approach to teaching my own children to drive (almost certainly shared by many other older forum members) is validated. I have always talked about the dangers of driving and the lives that are wrecked by doing it badly. And when driving them during their teenage years I have made them listen to me explain why I do what I do - you know the sort of thing: 'slowing down for this bend I have to slow down enough so that I can stop in time if there is a cyclist just out of sight'. My youngest is now 15. With her I have got to talking about things like who has priority, and asking her to make judgements of when it is safe to go etc. Hopefully by the time she goes out on the road and has to concentrate on car control aspects she will be well advanced on the judgement and decision making side.

Shamefully, I had several crashes in my first few years of driving (luckily noone ever got hurt). I have two driving sons who have not yet crashed (the 20 year old just came back yesterday from a month in the Alps with his car - he has now come back safely from several long continental trips). To the extent that this is good luck, long may the luck continue! But I hope that the training may have played a part too.

[vonhosen]

That short piece on the Hermes project does not seem to focus on the same aspects as the piece posted by Darren - which presumably comes from Steve Haley of Mind Driving?

If you take away the broader societal aspects from Steve Haley's piece - which are too far outside the scope of any project on novice driver training to address - you are left with a need to move the balance of novice training away from car control and towards thinking skills. I have long believed that there is a strong case for inclusion of road sense education in the national curriculum for 11 to 14 year-olds - it has to be done at an age where opinions are easily formed, and before being tied up with car control issues. But I can well imagine it being done badly, in a way which does not advance road safety. Just look at how much effort and money went into hazard perception testing, which is now being recognised as a failure.

I hope that when and if it is done it will be done intelligently, and carefully piloted before being expanded widely.

I take comfort that my approach to teaching my own children to drive (almost certainly shared by many other older forum members) is validated. I have always talked about the dangers of driving and the lives that are wrecked by doing it badly. And when driving them during their teenage years I have made them listen to me explain why I do what I do - you know the sort of thing: 'slowing down for this bend I have to slow down enough so that I can stop in time if there is a cyclist just out of sight'. My youngest is now 15. With her I have got to talking about things like who has priority, and asking her to make judgements of when it is safe to go etc. Hopefully by the time she goes out on the road and has to concentrate on car control aspects she will be well advanced on the judgement and decision making side.

Shamefully, I had several crashes in my first few years of driving (luckily noone ever got hurt). I have two driving sons who have not yet crashed (the 20 year old just came back yesterday from a month in the Alps with his car - he has now come back safely from several long continental trips). To the extent that this is good luck, long may the luck continue! But I hope that the training may have played a part too.

The Hermes project is about dealing with the disproportional number of youngsters involved in crashes. It's about throughout Europe changing the way driving is taught. It's about moving away from Instruction to Coaching & with that an increase in both awareness & responsibility for candidates. It's about it not being the physical skills that tend to be most lacking in our young drivers (they pick those up pretty quickly), it's the attitudes & belief systems they operate those physical skills within.