Motorists Drive Dangerously Without Realising It
Tuesday, 3. May 2011
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Evidence shows that drivers are not attentive 66% of the time. This was revealed by Dr Nick Reed, senior researcher into human behaviour at the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), at a seminar into driver distraction organised by road safety charity, Brake. If it wasn’t such a serious subject I could reveal a few distractions that could easily lead to accidents but you’re probably ahead of me on that one! Whilst police accident statistics may not be very good at clearly identifying accidents caused by distractions common sense suggests that lack of driver awareness (adjusting driving style to conditions) and hazards account for almost all accidents.
Tests have shown that drivers spend up to 50% of their time only seeing objects not pertinent to driving but how can this problem be resolved? Advanced driver training may make drivers more aware of the problem but it won’t resolve it.
In fact it is believed by some that following an advanced driver training course drivers emerge feeling more confident and more likely to take risks. The real surprise came from the statistics when accidents were analysed. Motorways have 4% of collisions and 6% of fatalities, rural roads 25% and 54% and town centres 71% and 60% fatalities.
So it is much more dangerous driving in a town centre than on a motorway. Nick Wood, head of training at RoSPA, suggested that whilst you will never get drivers to concentrate on their driving more than 15 – 20 minutes in an hour drivers should train themselves to look out for hazards and know where the dangers lie. Some key hazard spots in rural areas are intersections, bus stops, pubs and open spaces where you are more likely to encounter pedestrians. The top distractions were found to be mobile phones (63.4%), smoking (14.8%), food or drink use (11.3%) and finally Other (10.5%). Have you had an accident as a result of being distracted? Let us know and keep it clean(ish). By Graham Hill
