Inexperienced drivers face the greatest risk on our roads. Ray Fuller suggests that, to safeguard all drivers, the driving test needs to be updated and improved
Our road and traffic system is failing the inexperienced driver and drivers who are recently qualified have a higher involvement in accidents than other drivers.
This is irrespective of age, although youngest drivers are initially most at risk. Young adults between 17- and 24-years-old are four to five times more likely to be involved in collisions than older groups. Young motorcyclists are 20 times more likely.
Road crashes kill more in this age group than any other factor. Over-involvement of inexperienced drivers in collisions is not confined to Ireland - it has been described as "almost a law of nature".
The only means we have to address this problem is the testing and licensing system. For the sake of the inexperienced driver, and every other road user, we need a demonstration that an adequate level of competence has been achieved. But what we have is a driving test designed very much on the 1934 British model. Admittedly it was better than the French test introduced about 40 years earlier - the driver simply had to show that he could start the vehicle.
When the test was introduced here in 1964, we had no motorways, part of one dual-carriageway (from Dublin to Naas) and a comparatively low car ownership. The open road was the norm, 70 mph was considered very fast and few resources were devoted to enforcement. An accident was just bad luck.
Over-representation of recently qualified drivers in accident statistics is clear evidence that the test fails to license only competent drivers and fails to prevent collisions. Should we be surprised? After all, the test can assess only a small sample of a driver's knowledge and skill and in a virtually random range of situations. It can assess attitudes only indirectly, if at all. It provides no opportunity to assess night-time or motorway driving. It doesn't even begin to examine ability to manage factors such as emotion, stress, distraction, fatigue or motivation for speed, all of which may undermine safety.
The addition of the so-called "theory" test in 2001 (prior to a provisional licence) hardly improved matters, being concerned mainly with testing knowledge of rules of the road and legislation. The "test amnesty" of a few years ago, introduced to wipe out the mounting backlog for the test, did not produce a related increase in novice driver accident involvement.
Gerry Wilde in his influential book, Target Risk, concludes that no relationship exists between grades achieved in the test and subsequent driving record.
So, is the test unreliable? We haven't carried out the necessary research here in Ireland, but not long ago in Britain a group of newly qualified drivers was re-tested nine months later, unknown to the testers. Half failed the second test.
The nature of testing and licensing is vital. Not only does it provide the one objective assessment of competence before a driver can be allowed to take charge of a vehicle. The test also largely determine driver training ithe commercially competitive world of driver instruction, whatever instructors feel is really needed.
We know what the problems are. Most novices' increased risk comes from inappropriate behaviour - taking risks deliberately, or without appreciating the risk. Compared to more experienced drivers, young drivers in general are . . .
Poor at hazard recognition
Prone to drive too fast
Subject to peer pressures to adopt high-risk driving styles
Likely to follow other vehicles too closely
Likely to run amber lights more
Likely to accept smaller gaps in traffic
Likely to generally allow less of a safety margin while driving
Likely to drive in more vulnerable conditions (e.g., at night)
Likely to overestimate ability to drive safely, especially young males
Inexperienced drivers will have had relatively little exposure to the many hazards of the road and little if any practice at dealing with them. A clue about the fundamental nature of the problem comes from British research which found that the initial risk during the first few years decreases by 59 per cent due to experience alone.
Other research has shown that the best predictor of passing the test is simply the number of hours of experience. Experience, it seems, is necessary for the development of competence, but all too often this is gained at the expense of loss of control of the vehicle, collision, injury and sometimes even death.
And there we have a veritable Catch 22 . . . to become safe as a driver one needs experience, but gaining that experience is inherently unsafe.
Is there any way out?
•Dr Ray Fuller is senior lecturer at the department of psychology in TCD