Novel Investigation of Night-Time Driving Perceptual Similarities and Differences in Learner Drivers and Their Parent Supervisors
Young novice drivers persist as a major public health problem due to their over-involvement in road crashes in which they and other road users are injured. Graduated driver licensing programs typically mandate a minimum learner practice period, with parents providing the most driving supervision. Parents are likely to be experienced drivers with effective situation awareness skills (SAS), while learner drivers are inexperienced drivers with comparatively-underdeveloped SAS. This study operationalized a novel methodology to explore the night-time SAS of learners and parents. Twelve learner-parent dyads provided verbal commentary regarding ‘what they were looking at and thinking about as the driver’ (insight into SAS) during viewing of a 15-minute segment of real-world night-time driving footage projected in a cave-simulation environment. Learner and parent SAS comprised 20 shared concepts (eg., merging, ahead), with 10 (eg., direction) and 9 (eg., clear) unique concepts for learners and parents respectively, revealing noteworthy perceptual similarities and differences. The concept networks differed in structure; learners focusing on immediate and readily observable on-road risks, parents more fully considering the nature of the risks within the immediate and the more general driving environment. The learner license phase provides an opportunity to develop sound SAS, however the findings revealed through operationalization of an innovative methodology suggest that learners build ‘surface’, rather than ‘deep’, SAS. Interventions targeting parents and learners should highlight the importance of SAS for young novice driver road safety, providing guidance regarding teaching SAS and developing SAS in young novice drivers.
-
Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB30 Standing Committee on Operator Education and Regulation.
-
Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Scott-Parker, B
- Caldwell, J
-
Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2017-1-8 to 2017-1-12
- Date: 2017
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Appendices; Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 19p
- Monograph Title: TRB 96th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Alertness; Driving; Graduated licensing; Night; Parents; Perception; Recently qualified drivers; Teenage drivers
- Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01625667
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 17-04052
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Feb 9 2017 11:11AM