An educator's standpoint on distractions
By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2000-09-22
When drivers don't perform well enough and public safety is seen to be at stake, pressure is put on policymakers and politicians to do something. The easy way out, as in the case of mobile phone use in cars, is to pass laws.
However, passing a law really is just the easy part. Enforcement is much more difficult. It will likely be easier to enforce a law against hand-held mobile phones than one against hands-free. But research evidence so far shows little difference between the distraction effect of hand-held and hands-free phone use by drivers. And research into the effectiveness of enforcement programs indicate that a big increase in enforcement levels is required to create a significant reduction in violations. In other words, a high probability of being caught is a greater deterrent than tough penalties by themselves.
Some studies have indicated that enforcement needs to be stepped up by a factor of three to five times before the public takes any notice. This means that achieving results with enforcement can be very expensive.
A good way to get the public's attention is to tell drivers there is going to be increased enforcement. Selective Traffic Enforcement Programs (STEPs) are a commonly used strategy in which certain violations are targeted and a blitz of enforcement action, backed up by several announcements in the media, ensures that the general public knows there is something going on.
These programs have been shown to be effective and they are widely used. However, once the STEP program is over, things tend to drift back to normal. Some drivers may continue to use their seatbelts or stick closer to the speed limits, but most forget once the publicity dies.
The difficulties of achieving results with enforcement surely points to a need for education and training as means of changing the way drivers relate to potential distractions in the car. However, something will have to change before policymakers place much faith in training. Researchers have looked at driver education programs (particularly U.S. high school programs) in the past and found them wanting. At the August 2000 Internet conference on driver distractions, human factors expert Loren Staplin explained why he feels training won't help much.
What keeps drivers alert, Staplin says, is reinforcement from the traffic environment. At street intersections, for example, drivers will normally check fairly thoroughly for traffic because if they don't, there's a good chance they will be punished, either by an angry reaction or from another driver or a collision. On the other hand, maintaining good checking habits at a railway grade crossing will be difficult because the chance of meeting a train is rare.
Complacency, in other words, is what allows drivers to be seduced by distractions. And in Staplin's view, it's quite possible that a well-trained driver, feeling mastery over the task, might even be more susceptible to distractions than an untrained one.
Such theories about training may be true if training is aimed purely at avoiding collisions. Collisions are, after all, rare events, and it's difficult to maintain vigilance against such eventualities.
But, on the other hand, if the bar of training were raised the story might be different. If training could take drivers past basic rules and procedures, which they seem to forget fairly quickly anyway, and open their eyes and minds to all the interesting things going on in traffic, there would likely be enough to keep their minds on the task for a much greater percentage of the time.
For example, there's much more to communication than merely putting on a turn signal. Every nuance of speed and position sends out messages to other road users. Sometimes drivers, unaware of these nuances, send messages they didn't intend, or perhaps fail to send messages they should have. Anyone who's pulled out into traffic in front of a car that had its turn signal on but did not turn knows what this means.
Drivers making phone calls tend to wander in their lane. In fact, this is one of the most common and predictable results of car phone distractions. But, if they are not very sophisticated drivers, they may not even be aware of the wanderings, never mind the effects they can have on other drivers.
Many of the annoyances drivers experience in traffic are likely due to causes they are unable to pin down-subtle irritations that are present but difficult to name. This is common when people of different cultural backgrounds mix. There can be something about a person's behavior you find annoying but can't identify. We can presume that the same applies in driving, when so many individuals, with different perceptions, expectations, and ideas about what's right and wrong, try to interact in the volatile arena that is modern traffic.
To say that training and education can do nothing about it would be a very strange conclusion indeed. We do, after all, believe that education helps "race relations," that training helps police deal with demonstrators and avoid unnecessary friction. Why not the same for drivers?
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