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Computer aids driver's ed skills
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
By STAN FREEMAN
sfreeman@repub.com

AMHERST - A rite of passage endured by generations of teens, "Driver's Ed" may soon be headed into the shop for an overhaul.

Researchers at University of Massachusetts in Amherst found that novice drivers who used a computerized program to train them in recognizing risks on the road were much more likely than untrained drivers to look for those risks once they were on an actual road.

"This is the first time in the history of driver education that anyone has shown any effect of training on crash-related behaviors," said Donald L. Fisher, director of the university's Human Performance Laboratory and the lead researcher on the study that will be published in the journal Injury Prevention.

Young drivers are involved in a disproportionate share of fatal crashes. In fact, 16-year-old drivers have a fatal crash rate eight times that of drivers ages 45 to 64. Often, the cause of such crashes is a failure by novice drivers to scan the roadway for potential risks, such as a car coming out of a blind driveway, Fisher said.

While standard driver education teaches students the physical mechanics of driving a car, it does not seem to teach them to drive safely, he said. "There has been no study documenting the effectiveness of standard driver education in the reduction of crashes."

The study by Fisher, Anuj Pradhan and Alexander P. Pollatsek began with the training of novice drivers on a computer. They were shown still pictures of various driving situations, such as a truck parked so that it blocked a crosswalk, and then asked to use the cursor to mark areas of the scene where risks existed, such as where a pedestrian might walk into the path of the car. Mistakes sent them to explanatory screens and then they were shown new pictures.

Next, 12 drivers who had gone through the training as well as 12 drivers who had not were tested on a driving simulator and on actual roads in Amherst and Hadley to measure how well they identified risks. All wore equipment that tracked their eye movements so that the researchers could determine where they looked as they drove.

The study found that 70 percent of the trained drivers looked at places where there were risks on the road similar to those encountered in their training. Only 33 percent of the untrained drivers looked for those same risks. The study also found that 59 percent of the trained drivers looked at places on the road where risks existed that were not like those in their training. Among the untrained drivers, 39 percent looked for those same risks.

Fisher said, "For those scenarios that they were trained to recognize on the PC, the drivers did very good, but what was really surprising was how well they did in scenarios they were not trained for," indicating the training seemed to give them a general education to driving risks.

Despite the findings, traditional driver's education still has a place in training young drivers, he said.

"There is an important role schools can play. The drivers need to know the rules of the road and how to maneuver the vehicle. And during the time on the road, it's critical to have a driving instructor with the student. However, there is no doubt in my mind that driver education ought to include (computer) programs like this," Fisher said.