Behaviour

This report, dated May 2017, produced for the New Zealand Transport Agency. It aimed to understand time saving as a motivation for New Zealand drivers’ speeding in the context of other motivations for speeding, and to investigate the effect of education that aimed to improve participants’ understanding of the costs and benefits of speeding.

Sometimes when I read articles on road safety I come across one that really resonates with me. A story from 2008 written by Paul Hergott titled Drivers Need to Smarten Up When Out on the Road is one of them. Paul starts off by saying "We’ve got ourselves a serious attitude problem. We see driving as a right."

Research led by Dr. Thomas Brown of McGill University in Montreal suggests that "surprisingly, these drivers usually don't consider themselves as risk takers. If drivers don't believe they are risky, they will not accept the need to change. On the other hand, if we and they don't understand their behavior, how can they be expected to change it effectively?"

A recent poll by Insights West found that 50% of Canadians feel that drivers in their city or town are worse than they were five years ago. The two top groups of bad drivers identified by three of every five of us were youth and seniors. To top it off, most of us have witnessed dangerous and illegal behaviour on our roads in the past month. Wow! Time to have a look at ourselves in the rear view mirror.

I grew up in a small town where there were no sidewalks unless you counted 4 sides from 3 blocks downtown. As children, we didn't pay much attention to the rule that required us to walk on the left facing oncoming traffic but we did make sure that we were on the edge or even off of the pavement when a vehicle drove by.

When we think of distracted driving, most of us immediately consider cell phone use. While this might be the most common example used in distracted driving campaigns, it is certainly not the only one. Any action that takes the drivers attention off of the driving task is distracting and is to be avoided.

Have you ever met anyone who would admit to being less than a better than average driver? Those of us who are completely honest may say so but our behaviour behind the wheel could indicate differently. It's called optimism bias and it is something that we are all affected by. We are all optimistic about our personal capabilities and that includes our driving skills.

Driving should involve co-operation, not a contest. There is no doubt that my point of view has been influenced by four decades of driving experience, 25 years of collision investigation and daily observation of what goes on around me when I drive. Yes, I am one of "those drivers." I use the right hand lane, do my best to follow the speed limit and feel like a rock in the stream. I have come to expect to see constant examples of sloppy, selfish driving and am pleasantly surprised when I see someone extend courtesy. It should be the opposite.

What do I do about a dangerous road situation? The person asking this question is referring to a stretch of city street where two lanes become three when the street is joined by a freeway off ramp. This 3 lane street is about half a block long before it reaches a T intersection where it is popular to make a right turn.

I've just finished reading Eliminating Serious Injury and Death From Road Transport and find myself in agreement with much of its content. The time I've spent in traffic law enforcement and the investigation of a large number of collisions has shown me that many of them are suffered by people just like you and me.