A presentation on the latest research on reducing crash risk from Dr Lisa Dorn at the 2nd DriverMetrics Users Conference, 1st March 2103

1. Dr Lisa Dorn
Reducing Fleet Crash Risk:
A Review of Recent Research

2. Literature Review

3. Recent Data
• United Nations General Assembly - Decade of Action
• 1.3m die each year and projected to double by 2030
• 20m injured each year
• Road traffic crashes biggest cause of work-related death and injury
• 14 people killed a week and 160 seriously injured (DfT, 2009)
• 70-100,000 non-fatal work-related road traffic crashes each year
(The Labour Force Survey 2010)
• 52,806 drivers/riders became casualties in at-work journeys (DfT, 2011)
• 30-40,000 crashes cause more than 3 days absence
(The Labour Force Survey 2010)

4. Driver Skills and Driver Behaviour
• Driver skill improves with
practice - automation of
information processing and
psychomotor skill
• In-vehicle driver training
• Driver behaviour motives,
habits and driving style - may
become less worried about
safety over time
• Behaviour-based approach

5. Behaviour and the Brain
• All behaviour is an output from the brain
• Billions of neurons connected via trillions of synapses
• 11 million sensations zip down the neural pathways per
sec
• 40 sensations delivered to conscious awareness per sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90cj4NX87Yk

6. The Brain and Behaviour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ1QXSn_cfU
• Our reality is a construction
• Sensory impressions, stored memories, personality and
emotional assessments
• Bayes theory - probability of future event calculated based on
past events and constantly updating
• Signals decay - important hypothesis may disappear before the
next prediction made
• Attention drifts in unusual ways - shifting from one thought and
hypothesis to another

7. FDRI Factors
Situational Risk
Age, driving experience, mileage, licence, crash history etc
Behavioural Risk Factors Driver Coping Styles
Work Related Risk Driving Focus
Aggression Confrontation
Hazard Monitoring Driving Concerns
Driving Excitement Self Evaluation
Driving Fatigue
Correction Factors
Impression Management
Driver Confidence

8. Driver Behaviour at Work
• Risky driving – e.g. speeding, tailgating, cutting up,
lane weaving, running red lights
• Distracted, inattentive and impaired driving –improper
lookout, mobile phone use, fatigue
• What is motivating this behaviour at work?

9. Time Pressure
• Work demands
• Unfavourable ratio between quantity of available
time and quantity of time needed to reach
destination
• 3 Cranfield studies on time pressure
• Drivers in a hurry almost 8 times more likely to be
impatient drivers (Beck et al, 2012)

10. Self Reported Time Pressure
• Taking risks under time pressure seen as inevitable
• Driver stress, ineffective coping and fatigue
• Strongly correlated with (n=334) :-
• Aggression (r=.34, p <.001)
• Thrill Seeking (r=.47, p < .001)
• Confrontive Coping (r=.40, p <.001)
• Emotion focused Coping (r=.36, p <.001)
• Driving Fatigue Resistance (r= -.39, p < .001)
• Task Focus Coping (r= - .30, p <.001)
Dorn and Gandolfi (2008)

11. Induced Time Pressure
• BDRI maladaptive coping strategies linked with driving
performance decrements under time pressure
• Forceful drivers drive even more forcefully under time
pressure
Dorn et al (2010)

12. Time Pressure and Time Delays
• Induced time pressure
• Effects of time pressure
contextual and/or chronic
Group of Pedestrians (GP), Priority to Right (PR), Information Request (IR), Traffic
Jam (TJ), Alternating Traffic Light (ATL), Urban Traffic Light (UTL), Delivery Van
block (DV) and Disabled Person crossing (DP)

13. Time Pressure Summary
Time pressure interaction between
person and situation and linked to:
• work-related attentional focus
• risky driving
• Increased crash risk
• chronic conditions
• Motivating factors (sanctions)

14. Organisations and Time Pressure
• Safe travel key business priority for some companies
• Positive safety climate = workload and time pressure
management and fewer errors and violations (Öz, et al, 2013)
• Integration - consider whether you have the following covered:
• Policy
• Responsibility
• Organisation
• Systems
• Monitoring

15. Behaviour-based Interventions
• Workshops to self reflect on
driver stress (FDRI)
• Clock time (real time) Vs
Imaginary time (depends on
forward and backward
thoughts )
• Peer to peer - common
decisions about future
behaviour
• Commitment to change and
follow-up

16. Thank You