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Hazard anticipation of young novice drivers - SWOV

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with covert latent hazards during the transfer drive on a simulator than<br />

participants in the control group did.<br />

6.1.2. Studies on hazard <strong>anticipation</strong> training<br />

McKenna & Crick (1997) developed a training program on hazard<br />

perception. This program <strong>of</strong> four hours was spread out over a period <strong>of</strong> three<br />

weeks. The training consisted <strong>of</strong> a classroom session, group video watching<br />

and one-to-one tutoring with video clips. In a second experiment it was<br />

found that only the one-to-one tutoring with video clips was effective. In<br />

these sessions, a participant and a driving instructor watched together videos<br />

from the driver's perspective. The driving instructor froze the videos at<br />

moments that hazards started to develop and then encouraged the<br />

participant to generate predictions about the development <strong>of</strong> possible<br />

hazards. To measure the effect <strong>of</strong> the training, the reaction latency test was<br />

used (see Section 4.1.3). Trained <strong>novice</strong> <strong>drivers</strong> had significantly shorter<br />

reaction times than untrained <strong>novice</strong> <strong>drivers</strong> and the reaction times <strong>of</strong> the<br />

trained <strong>novice</strong> <strong>drivers</strong> were about the same as the reaction times <strong>of</strong> the<br />

experienced <strong>drivers</strong>. In a more recent experiment, participants were only<br />

asked to generate verbal commentaries as they viewed the videos and had to<br />

listen to the commentary <strong>of</strong> experts while they watched the videos (McKenna<br />

et al., 2006). This simple training using commentary only, also resulted in<br />

shorter reaction times. The fact that participants had attended the training<br />

course did not make them more confident <strong>of</strong> their driving skills and no<br />

behavioural adaptation resulting in more risk taking was found. This is<br />

remarkable as short driver training programs in special skills such as skid<br />

training seem to have this adverse effect (see for a meta analysis: Elvik et al.,<br />

2009, pp. 781-785). This is to say that crash rate increases after the training.<br />

Gregersen (1996) presumed that short training programs in special skills<br />

increases self-confidence and self-efficacy although the special skills are not<br />

fully mastered. This false believe in superiority because <strong>of</strong> the training<br />

subsequently results in more risk taking.<br />

The method <strong>of</strong> verbal commentary while watching videos from the<br />

driver's perspective was also used in a training program to improve the<br />

hazard perception skill <strong>of</strong> <strong>novice</strong> <strong>drivers</strong> that was developed by Isler,<br />

Starkey, & Williamson (2009). The test used in this study to measure the<br />

effect, differed from the reaction time test that was developed by McKenna &<br />

Crick (1997). While watching the videos from the driver's perspective,<br />

participants had to perform a secondary task. This secondary task was a<br />

tracking task that was projected in the centre <strong>of</strong> the screen. In contrast to<br />

driving in real traffic, drives do not have to allocate part <strong>of</strong> their cognitive<br />

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