Hazard anticipation of young novice drivers - SWOV

their own limitations, an increase in confidence is not very likely. This was
also found in other studies about hazard anticipation training (Ivancic &
Hesketh, 2000; McKenna et al., 2006).
Second, it is of interest to ask whether SimRAPT would be as effective
with novice drivers at 16 years of age as it is with participants in this study
who have held their license for approximately 2 years. In fact, there are
indications from the reduction in variability observed in the trained drivers
that, especially for the near transfer scenarios, SimRAPT seems to bring
drivers who do relatively poor and drivers who do relatively well to the
same level of hazard anticipation skills. This implies that SimRAPT could
also be an effective training at a moment earlier in one's driving career than
two years after full licensing. This is important because the highest crash rate
is directly after licensing (see Section 1.2).
Third, it is of interest to ask whether one can expect the effects of
training to last for an extended period of time (retention). A real limitation of
the present study is that participants were tested directly after the training.
Thus, the effects on long term retention are not known. Because the
experience of crashes or near crashes during the simulator training is
presumed to create arousal and moderate levels of arousal enhance memory
(McGaugh et al., 2002), it could be that retention of skills is better for
SimRAPT than for RAPT-3 as in RAPT-3 no deliberate actions were taken to
enhance memory consolidation. Whether SimRAPT has a more lasting effect
than RAPT-3 remains to be tested.
Fourth, it is of interest to ask whether the learning which occurs with
SimRAPT and generalizes to the advanced simulator would actually be
found in the real world and, additionally, whether there would be a
corresponding reduction in crash rates. What the effect of SimRAPT is for
driving behavior in the real world, is not known. This has been studied for
RAPT-3 and significant positive effects of RAPT-3 on driving in the real
world could be demonstrated (Pradhan et al., 2009). No studies of the effect
of simulator-based error training on visual search for latent hazards on crash
rates have been conducted. Clearly more research is required.
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