Psychology 409A-November 28, 2005
My Ninth Outline of
Assigned
By Gemma Clayson
“Safety and Prevention”
Rothe, J. Peter. Driving Lessons: Exploring Systems That Make Traffic
Safer. The
Instructions for this activity are found at: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/409a-g23-oral.htm
Instructor: Dr. Leon James
Concept One: The Human Driver
A. The data shows that 80-90% of all crashes involve driver error. That’s a huge percentage. Most driver errors could be considered aggressive such as: speeding, tailgating, or running red lights. What’s causing these driver errors?
B. According to Rothe, throughout our lives we are experiencing stress and pressure. These pressures add up and bear down on the driver, preventing them from error free driving. As a young adult the driver is inexperienced and socially susceptible to pressure from their peers. Through middle age, work and financial pressures divert a driver’s mental attention. Lastly the older driver experiences a decline in their physical capabilities which affects their driving behaviors.
C. I do feel some pressure from my male friends when I’m driving to drive a little faster than I’m comfortable with. Now I’m starting to think twice about my actions after reading about some of the drinking and driving statistics.
Concept Two: Vehicle and Road Failure
A. Vehicle failures make up less than 10% of crashes and road failures are involved in 10-20% of crashes. Crashes could still be prevented by better designing roads and vehicles.
B. Throughout the years, car manufacturers have focused intensely on safety. These vehicle safety features support the notion that drivers are not perfect and it’s sometimes essential for us to rely on our vehicle to keep us safe. Not only do we rely on our vehicles, but we also might need to rely on the designs of the roads.
C. This concept of possible vehicle and road failure is important to recognize. When it comes to driver error, there is nobody to blame but the driver themselves. When you think of vehicle failure or road failure, it’s comforting to know that improvements are constantly in the works to better the driver’s safety.
Concept Three: The Multimodal Operational and Safety Reviews and Road Safety Audits
A. The multimodal operational and safety reviews should improve the safety of the existing roads and the road safety audits should reduce the crash risk at any stage of the design of the prospective project. The idea is that roads must accommodate the predictable errors that this imperfect human driver could commit.
B. Some examples:
1. If there’s an aggressive driver on a two lane road who attempts to overtake cars in front of them and crashes, road designers and traffic analysts could prevent this type of crash by providing enough passing opportunities on the stretch of road.
2. Another example in the book is if an error occurs when a left-turning driver does not correctly approximate the gap of oncoming traffic and crashes. According to these integrated systems, the road designers and traffic analysts could predict the demand of the traffic gaps and prevent this type of crash by providing left-turn lanes or left turn signals.
In those two situations driver error is the cause, but a better road design could be a solution.
C. This concept was a little hard for me to understand how the two systems really work. I think Rothe could have been a bit more supportive of the systems by possibly providing working statistics.
Related Web Links:
1. http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drving.htm -Impaired driving statistics
2. http://www.roadwaysafetyaudits.org –Explains what road safety audits are
3. http://ladpw.org/rmd/roadclosure/results.cfm -Possible road failures
The G23 Class Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy23/classhome-g23.htm
My Home Page: www.soc.hawaii.edu/leon/409af2005/clayson/home.htm