Driver performance - what the driver CAN do Driver behavior - what the driver DOES do

1. Human (Driver) Behavior: A
Public Health Perspective
Dr Amit Agrawal, MCh
Professor, Department of Neurosurgery
Narayana Medical College and Hospital, Nellore (AP)
India

2. 68.1
3.4
19.2
5.9
2.1
0.4
0.8
0 20 40 60 80
Human error
Human error & Vehicle
Human error & road
Road
Vehicle
Vehicle & road
All three elements
Percent
2
Human error, the vehicle or the road as the cause
of accidents?
Elvik et al. 1997

3. 3
The Road Safety Triad
Driver Road infrastructure
Vehicle

4.  Driver performance - what the driver CAN do
 Driver behavior - what the driver DOES do
Performance versus behavior

5.  Driver performance
 Relates to the driver's knowledge, skill, and perceptual and
cognitive abilities
 Driver behavior
 What the driver chooses to do with these attributes
Performance versus behavior

6. Individual
Family
Gender
Roles
Culture
religion
Income
Social
Status
Community
Media
Services
Policy
Determinants of behavior

7.  Human tolerance factors
 Inappropriate or excessive speed
 Use of alcohol, medicinal or recreational drugs
 Fatigue
 Rash Driving
 Being a young male
 Having youths driving in the same car
 Seat-belts and child restraints not used
Risk factors

8.  At the core of the road traffic injury problem
 Speed influences both crash risk and crash consequence
 Driver-related factors
 Age
 Sex
 Alcohol
 Number of people in the vehicle
 Having youths driving in the same car
Speed
{Mohan, 2006 #1}

9.  Long distance driving
 Sleep deprivation
 Disruption of circadian rhythms
Driver fatigue or sleepiness
{Mohan, 2006 #1}

10.  Young people, particularly males, aged 16-29 years
 Shift workers whose sleep is disrupted by working at night
or working long, irregular hours
 Untreated sleep apnea syndrome or narcolepsy
 Driving between 02:00 AM and 05:00 AM
Driver fatigue or sleepiness
{Mohan, 2006 #1}

11.  Almost universally a major risk factor for road traffic crashes
 Low-income countries
 33% and 69% of fatally injured drivers
Alcohol

12.  Owners of public transport vehicles, in pursuit of increased
profits, frequently force their drivers to drive
 At excessive speeds
 To work unduly long hours
 To work when exhausted
Commercial and public transport
{Mohan, 2006 #1}

13.  Adversely affect physical tasks as well as perception and
decision making
 The process of dialing influences a driver’s ability to keep to
the course on the road
 Reaction times are increased by 0.5-1.5 seconds when
talking into a mobile telephone
Hand-held mobile telephones
{Mohan, 2006 #1}

14.  Difficult to maintain the correct lane position
 Difficult to maintain the correct headway between two
vehicles travelling one behind the other
 Alter the capacity in keeping to an appropriate speed
 Alter the capacity to judge and accept safe gaps in the
traffic
 Increase the risk of a crash by four times
Hand-held mobile telephones
{Mohan, 2006 #1}

15.  Slips and lapses
 Errors (mistakes)
 Violations
The demands put on the driver may be too complex for
the driver’s limited capacity of processing information
Components of driver behaviour
Reason (1990)
Parker et al. (1995)

16. Slips and lapse
 Influenced by motoric, perceptual, attentional, or
judgmental processes
 Technical mastery
 Choosing the wrong gear

17. Errors (Mistakes)
 Reading the road, hazard perception
 Misjudge the distance to an approaching vehicle
 Fail to notice a “Wrong Way” Sign
 Distance misjudging of the vehicle moving in front
 Cognitive and motor skills

18. Violations
 Driving expression of underlying motivation and social
maladjustment
 Speeding
 Close following
 Dangerous overtakings

19.  Movement of people on the road is necessary
 It may not be possible in practice to completely eliminate all
risk, but it is possible to reduce
Summary

20.  New safety measures will not automatically result in actual
safety benefits
 Seat belts for all occupants
 Energy-absorbing steering column
 Penetration-resistant windshield
 Dual braking systems
 Padded instrument panel
 More efficient brakes
 A man drives as he lives
Summary

21.  Why does individual do things?
 Why does individual not do the right thing?
What we need to study?

22.  Lack of information/education/training (does not know
things)
 Ignorance (does not want to know things)
 Lacking impulses to get information & laziness (Inertia)
 Non-conformity (wants to do things differently)
 Traffic as a culture (Same person behaving differently in
different circumstances)
Need for further research

23.  The driver must be seen as an active participant, not a
passive responder of the system
 Behavior change is a continuous process which needs
strong participation
Conclusion

24. How to change behavior ???