‘Theory and evidence’ to be examined at Young Driver Focus 2016

The Transport Research Laboratory’s (TRL) head of transport psychology will present a review of the theory and evidence relating to young and novice driver interventions at the Young Driver Focus 2016* conference in London.

The presentation will be delivered by Dr Shaun Helman, a cognitive psychologist who has been involved in researching road safety and driver behaviour for the last 15 years.

The focus of Dr Helman’s work is the links between driver behaviour and safety outcomes such as collisions and injuries, particularly in high-risk groups such as young and novice drivers, those driving for work and motorcyclists.

Dr Helman’s presentation will outline the different mechanisms by which young and novice driver interventions are proposed to improve safety for this group. These include increasing skills and changing attitudes, managing exposure to risk, and promoting various types of preparation in the learning phase.

He will then move on to examine the theoretical plausibility of these and other mechanisms, drawing on several recent and current research projects which are focused either on reviewing the evidence for young and novice driver interventions, or on examining changes to the GB learning to drive process.

Young Driver Focus 2016
Young Driver Focus 2016 is being held at the prestigious RAC Club in London’s Pall Mall, courtesy of the RAC Foundation, on Wednesday 20 April 2016. The event is organised by Road Safety GB in partnership with FirstCar and headline sponsors ingenie. It is supported by stakeholders including the DfT, Road Safety Scotland, RoadSafe, RoSPA, PACTS and IAM.

Now in its third year, the one-day conference examines current and future thinking with regard to the vital issue of reducing crashes and casualties caused by young, newly qualified drivers, and what is being done to improve the situation.

Click here to register to attend, or here for information about exhibiting alongside the conference. For more information contact Sally Bartrum (delegate registration), Nick Rawlings (agenda & speakers) or Richard Storrs (exhibition).