Driving instructors are being asked to recruit students for a new research project, which aims to help newly-qualified drivers improve their skills when they begin driving post-test.
Described as the largest ‘real-world’ trial of its kind anywhere in the world, Driver2020 was launched by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) earlier this year.
Driver2020 is investigating interventions targeted at learners and novice drivers in a series of controlled tests. The project aims to understand how learner drivers react to different training approaches and the effect they have on their driving.
TRL hopes the results from the research will shape how young drivers learn to drive in the future, before and after the driving test.
Call to action
Over the next year or so, TRL is seeking to recruit upwards of 12,000 learner drivers under the age of 25 years, and is asking Approved Driving Instructors (ADIs) to encourage their pupils to take part in the trial.
The Driving Instructors’ Association (DIA) says it is ‘crucial’ trainers get involved in Driver2020 as it will ‘directly shape driver training, licensing and testing in the future’.
Participants may receive free additional training, e-learning or be asked to download an app to help complement their learning. They will also be paid to complete surveys once they have passed their test and have the chance to win prizes for participating in the trial.
Driver2020 is running between now and early 2021 in order to allow thousands of learners to pass their test, and accumulate enough post-test experience to complete the surveys.
Launching the initiative earlier this year, Shaun Helman, project director of Driver2020, said: “Without the help of ADIs, research projects like Driver2020 simply cannot succeed. I’m looking forward to great levels of support from the profession, as we have received from previous TRL projects like this.
“I’m also looking forward to being able to come back to the profession at the end of the project to see what role they can play in implementing whatever we find, so that we can all work together to improve the safety of the people we all serve – those new drivers who are hungry to learn, to improve, and to make the roads safer.”
Click here to register to take part or for more information visit the Driver2020 website.
Obviously to improve young driver skills is an excellent idea in principle but, the word skills seems to imply some aspect of physical management, either of the vehicle or, of situations. The real skills are based on attitudes because it is they which determine behavior and suitable reaction to situations. And reaction to situations is, in turn, determined by threat perception. When threat perception goes up the risk profile goes down, and vice versa. Heightened threat perception is related to a sense of vulnerability and that is universal to age or sex.
The main thrust of ADIs’ work is the test success rating because that determines their credibility in the eyes of the public which is, after all, where their income comes from. Ask many ADIs what they are preparing their pupils for and almost invariably the answer will be the driving test. What I would be looking for would be a basis of safe driving skills for life. The two are not necessarily the same. That brings into play another issue that of ADI driving standards and what they are actually teaching their pupils. Recently I came across an ADI vehicle parked on the opposite side of the road at night (which is illegal) just off a left hand bend (about the worst place to do it) and with a pupil on board. Talking briefly with the ADI after the pupil had left the vehicle she had no idea that the vehicle was parked illegally and muttered something in broken English where I could just distinguish ‘DVSA’. Pretty horrendous really. And another, also, recently where the ADI was driving and the vehicle twice went forward on the amber at traffic lights, obviously not realising that the amber is a stop light
Nigel Albright, TAUNTON
0