Hazard anticipation of young novice drivers - SWOV

etter scanning for latent hazards in situations that were in concept different
from the training scenarios, except for a general principle. These were the far
transfer situations. As trainees were confronted with the consequences of
their errors, it was finally hypothesised that the training would not promote
overconfidence.
For the training, a low cost fixed-base simulator was used with wideangle
projected display. The training lasted about one hour. In this hour,
trainees drove through short scenarios of about one minute each that
contained latent hazard. Most of these latent hazards were covert latent
hazards. There were three versions of each scenario. First, they drove the
scenario in which the latent hazard did not materialize. After this short drive,
trainees were asked what could have happened that did not happen.
Hereafter, irrespective of their answer they drove the so-called error drive.
This error drive was the same drive as the first drive, but now with the latent
hazard materializing aggressively. If the latent hazard was not detected and
recognized, this drive ended in a crash or a near miss. After this, a plan view
of the traffic situation appeared on the centre screen of the simulator.
Trainees had to explain to themselves on the basis of this plan view why the
near miss or crash had happened and what they could have done to avert the
crash or near miss. Trainees also received instruction about how to anticipate
the latent hazard. A plan view was used in order to promote far transfer.
Finally, trainees drove the scenario for the third time. In this third version the
latent hazard also materialized, but less aggressively than in the error drive.
This third drive was intended to offer trainees the opportunity to practice
what they had learned. After this third drive, the cycle started all over again
with a different latent hazard in a different scenario. In order to test the
hypotheses the skill to detect and recognize latent hazards of eighteen
trained and eighteen untrained young novice drivers that were around 19
years of age and had around two years driving experience, was evaluated on
an advanced driving simulator. Participants drove through three scenarios
that all together contained seven situations with latent hazards that did not
materialize that were the same as the latent hazards in the training, but that
were different in appearance. These were the near transfer situations. The
participants also encountered twelve situations with latent hazards that did
not materialize that were conceptually different from the latent hazards in
the training. These were the far transfer situations. The eye movements of
both groups were measured. The trained group made anticipatory gaze
directions in 84% of the near transfer latent hazard situations and the
untrained group made correct gaze directions in 57% of these situations. The
trained group made anticipatory gaze directions in 71% of the far transfer
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