Training/education may be sidelined in new driver licensing systems
By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 1996-09-09
A study by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation of Canada (TIRF) recommends that formal driver training/education programs not be included as part of graduated driver licensing systems.
Work on the report, titled " Effectiveness and role of driver education and training in a graduated licensing system ," was supported by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). It summarizes extensive international research showing driver education and training don't lead to lower crash involvement, compared with other ways of learning to drive.
The report states: "given the nature of the existing scientific evidence, at this time we would not recommend that jurisdictions introduce driver education/training into their graduated licensing system if there is no precedent for doing so. If the jurisdiction currently has no special requirements in its licensing system for driver training/education, we see no compelling reason for adding it to its graduated licensing system" (italics in original).
In making this recommendation the authors of the report, Dan Mayhew and Herb Simpson, recognize that formal education and training is already established by some jurisdictions as part of already existing licensing systems and that it will likely be continued under graduated licensing. However, they write, "If this occurs we do not recommend that the current driver education/training be merged with the graduated licensing system without due consideration of factors that might serve to strengthen that relationship ."
In a case where a jurisdiction has already committed to merging training and education with a graduated licensing system, the TIRF report recommends that consideration be given to several potential areas of improvement. However, it also suggests that "until these potential improvements have been tested and shown to add to the safety benefits of graduated licensing-i.e. the crash involvement of young drivers-wide-scale implementation should be discouraged."
The positive side
The move to graduated driver licensing may, the report states, "provide the mechanism and the rationale for examining not only what is taught in driver education/training but how it is taught." Driver education/training, the report suggests, could provide the structure for the orderly acquisition of critical safe driving skills during the graduated licensing phase.
However, the report adds, the graduated licensing system would need to complement this acquisition by providing motivational support to encourage the use of the newly acquired skills. It can do this by demanding a collision- and violation-free record before the novice can exit from the systems restrictions.
The report also suggests that the effectiveness of these incentives will be weakened if the restrictions are too few or too mild. "It is the desire to remove these restrictions that serves as the incentive to obtain a full unrestricted license." For this reason the authors recommend also that age not be a criterion for obtaining a full license since this offers little incentive to use skills and knowledge to drive safely.
A further recommendation of the report is that additional hurdles such as more frequent and demanding tests would also improve the motivational properties of graduated systems. "Novices should be motivated to acquire and practice safety skills required to prepare for the test(s). Test failures should demonstrate their skill limitations and the importance of learning the skills needed to pass. It may also be advisable to introduce the test earlier in the process. The reason is that once the novice passes the exit test and obtains a full unrestricted license there may be no further incentive to actually use the knowledge and skills acquired in training."
- Read a summary by the report's authors.
- Read the entire report.
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