Safe Speed presents...

1
Safe Speed presents...

• Driver quality - The essential foundation of all
  road safety

2
Why were British roads the safest in the world?

• Whats wrong with driving in India?
• Or Belgium?
• There are, of course, various reasons.
• But British drivers have been on average the best
  in the world.
• Its about standards of driving, or DRIVER
  QUALITY

3
Modern UK road safety trends

• Much lower reductions in risk vales than
  expected deaths not falling HES rising
• Engineering improvement continue at a pace
  (vehicles, roads, medical, post-crash rescue)
• Traffic growth is at an all-time low
• Pedestrian activity continues to decline
• Something is going wrong

4
Deadly loss of trend
5
Driver quality is in sharp decline

• Anecdotes abound
• Personal experience is clear
• Explains the loss of trend
• Im going to explain whats gone wrong, why its
  gone wrong, how its gone wrong and what we need
  to do about it.

6
Shifting the balance
The loss of responsibility is being perilously
ignored as regulation increases.
7
Road risk values...

• Are unequal from country to country
• Are unequal between men and women
• Are unequal across the population
• Are unequal from young to old
• Are unequal from year to year
• Changes are unequal from country to country
• All because driver quality is NOT constant - its
  variable

8
Driver quality...

• ...Has been WRONGLY regarded as unreachable or
  too difficult
• ...Is in sharp decline
• MUST be brought centre-stage in road safety
• lacks a good working definition
• Neglect of driver quality is costing British
  lives.

9
What happens if a driver closes his eyes?

• Within about 20 seconds he will crash.
• Why?
• Because he stops managing risk.
• Clearly its extremely important to safety that
  drivers keep their eyes open.
• Road safety utterly depends on drivers managing
  risk. It underpins everything else. It comes with
  experience.

10
Safety record

• One fatality per 100 million miles
• 1 in 1,000 crashes ends in a fatality
• Crash risk is not spread evenly across the
  population
• These figures include the reckless, the worst
  drivers and the least experienced.
• The safety record is amazing. Its a great
  strength that we must fully understand and build
  upon.

11
Crash risk distribution
12
Safe Speed estimates

• 80 of road dangers come from the worst 20 of
  drivers
• gt 70 will never experience an injury crash in a
  lifetime
• The median quality driver has less than 20 of
  the average crash risk
• The median quality driver poses a fatality risk
  of lt1 in 500 million miles (800mkm) Thats
  amazing.

13
Defining driver quality

• The ability of a driver to consistently stay out
  of trouble by managing road risks effectively.
• The inverse of crash risk is also a useful
  definition. A better quality driver always has a
  lower crash risk.
• In fact if a better driver didnt have a lower
  crash risk then our definition of better driver
  would be inadequate.

14
The learning curve
15
The learning curve

• Vulnerable to influence
• It would be reckless to assume that the national
  average learning curve is always going to be the
  same - but thats what the road safety industry
  is doing.
• Driver quality comes with experience.
• In many ways and in many views driver quality and
  experience are the same

16
Crash contributory factors

• 9 involve breaking a rule
• 90 involve a road user error
• 9 involve environment
• 90 of crash contributory factors are road user
  quality issues.
• Most of the breaking a rule crash contributory
  factors are also a road user error.

17
Policy effects

• Driver quality is not a constant
• The process of skills acquisition depends upon
  beliefs and attitudes
• Beliefs and attitudes depend on culture
• Culture is heavily influenced by policy
• Therefore policy changes the rate and extent of
  skills acquisition and thus average driver quality

18
How policy influences crash rates...
Good safety culture is key - exactly as it is in
industrial health and safety
19
Is modern policy improving driver quality?

• No. Decidedly no.
• Rules targets are far too prominent
• Skills targets are largely forgotten
• Beliefs targets are ignored
• Culture targets arent even considered
• Responsibility targets are lost in a sea of
  blameworthiness
• All the messages from policy are wrong

20
Key driver skills

• Concentration sufficient vigilance
• Distraction management
• Effective observation hazard perception
• Risk recognition and assessment a sense of
  danger
• Attitudes to risk
• Sense of responsibility
• Safe drivers are skilled risk managers
• These key skills are largely subconscious

21
Threats to Driver Quality

• Vulnerable to false beliefs
• Vulnerable to lack of interest
• Vulnerable to poor priorities
• Vulnerable to lack of understanding
• Vulnerable to inaccurate information
• Vulnerable to low targets
• But most of all vulnerable to bad policy

22
Good drivers are vulnerable

• Forced alterations to the behaviour of low
  crash risk drivers are likely to increase their
  crash risk.
• Thats because their learned behaviour was
  already reasonably optimal.
• Policies intended to target bad driving
  frequently alter the behaviour of good drivers
  too.

23
Consequences

• Policy makers must consider the effect of their
  policies on average driver quality
• Improving average driver quality is the
  fundamental objective of driver-focused road
  safety policy
• Policies that encourage rules compliance in
  isolation may have strong negative impacts on
  average driver quality

24
The context

• In the last 15 years the poor UK road safety
  performance has mainly been due to declining
  driver quality under the influence of poor road
  safety policy.
• Driver quality changes will dominate the
  progression of UK road safety in the next 20
  years
• Never again must driver quality be ignored or
  taken for granted. For all our sakes.

25
Further informationThe Safe Speed road safety
campaignwww.safespeed.org.uk

• Thanks for listening

26
Driver quality

• Good driver
• Good concentration
• Good observation
• Good risk recognition
• Good risk response
• Low risk acceptance
• Manages risk to a low level at all times

• Bad driver
• Poor concentration
• Poor observation
• Poor risk recognition
• Poor risk response
• High risk acceptance
• Fails to manage risk adequately

27
The accident triangle

• 3,000 fatal
• 30,000 serious
• 300,000 injury
• 3,000,000 damage only
• 30,000,000 near misses?

Road safety has much to learn from industrial
health and safety Human factors are key
28
Road safety...

• Is massively dependent on routine not crashing
  behaviours
• Looking at crashes for policy ideas risks gross
  neglect of fundamental strengths
• If you shut your eyes for just 20 seconds while
  driving
• Driver quality is taken for granted but it is
  extremely perilous to do so.

29
Managing risk

• Risk speedsurprise / space
• All drivers use this model continuously and
  subconsciously in real time
• Quality of risk management is a variable
• Risk acceptance thresholds are variable
• Change one parameter and we should expect risk
  compensation (thats why speed enforcement hasnt
  worked)

30
Bad drivers are key

• Policies that concentrate on the worst 20 of
  drivers are likely to have the biggest effects.
• Bad driving comes in many forms and can be
  recognised from crash records and by skilled
  roadside observation.
• Attempting to recognise bad drivers by rules
  violations is inadequate at best, and may
  represent a dangerous distraction for the rest of
  us.