AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE DEFENSIVE DRIVING COURSE

This study employed the systems concept that the overall success of a social product results from a combination of adoption rate and effectiveness and that product design improvement involves the generation of an attractive alternative product design, which is evaluated and compared with the conventional design on the basis of appropriate adoption rate and effectiveness measures. Group interviews and preliminary marketing research that involved actual and potential consumers of a defensive driving course were used to identify a number of salient course characteristics. The scope of the study was limited by confining the investigation to a single important course dimension-program context. Based on further marketing research combined with the judgment of experts in the driver education field, an alternative defensive driving course was formulated that included three new content items and fuel economy training. Subsequent experimental administration and testing of the alternate and conventional programs revealed that the alternate program was responsible for male drivers exhibiting a significant improvement on two of the three intermediate measures of effectiveness, i.e., fuel consumption and behind-the-wheel tests, and for female drivers exhibiting an improvement on the fuel consumpti9n test. Following the laboratory experiment to measure program effectiveness, the programs were subjected to a field adoption experiment in a suburban community setting. Comparison of the resulting course registrations revealed a significantly higher rate of adoption for the alternate program. /Author/

• Record URL:
  http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1977/629/629-012.pdf
• Summary URL:
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=AN+EXPERIMENTAL+STUDY+OF+THE+DEFENSIVE+DRIVING+COURSE&author=R.+Weiers&publication_year=1977
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/0309026571
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Publication of this paper sponsored by Committee on Driver Education. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
• Authors:
  • Weiers, Ronald M
• Publication Date: 1977

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 56-62
• Monograph Title: Pedestrian Controls, Bicycle Facilities, Driver Research, and System Safety
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 629
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Defensive drivers; Driver training; Drivers; Experiments; Females; Fuel consumption; Interviewing; Males; Market research; Suburbs
• Old TRIS Terms: Female drivers; Male drivers
• Subject Areas: Energy; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00173108
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309026571
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 18 1978 12:00AM