paper organization
Ahmed Rahhali
Grad 695
Weekly journal #6
Delivery Drivers, especially new and young drivers register high crash rates according to William (1999), States that young drivers are involved in more crashes as compared to drivers who have experience and have worked in this sector for some time. The reason for the high number of Accidents and Crashes in young drivers is due to lack of enough experience and lack of the necessary driving skills, which means maybe the training was not well conducted or it had some mishaps. This is due to the fact that driving is not an easy task as it is considered to self-paced and complex, at the same time requiring the combination of basic tasks, like steering, accelerating and braking and other complex skills lie problem solving and hazard perception, that are required for normal vehicle operation. The delivery driver most of the time are racing against time so that they can get the order on time, which adds on to the pressure of driving. Therefore, the skills needed to drive should be properly taught for the driver to be considered to have passed the road test. However, it is not the most important aim of training programs and driver education of such drivers and any other driver., the main aim is automatically to produce drivers who are safer. Although the basic belief is that the driver training should create a safety value, such programs have not done that and cannot be considered to be efficient, this may be wrong but evidence show that there are no safety benefits that can arise from the training of formal driver education. various empirical studies have shown that some of the driver training programs pose a safety risk and at the same time fail to show positive effects of delivery driver training, in fact at some point poses a risk as through such programs it easy for anyone to get a license.
There have been various authors who provided their reviews on contemporary driver training/education and mainly focusing on the new licensing systems compiled around 30 reviews that were from different countries whereby the reviews looked at the effectiveness of formal driver training ad education, including advanced training courses (Novice drivers) and motorcycle rider training and education. the review that included scientific evaluation gave put small support on the claim that an effective countermeasure at the moment can be driver instruction. The majority of the evidence failed to prove that students who were formally trained had a lower record number of crashes than the drivers who did not receive the same training. Additionally, the results continued to be more discouraging as few studies have actually proven there is no safety benefits in such training and education, in fact an increase in crashes rather than a decrease as expected. In some f the cases provide that such an occurrence might be caused by early license issued through driver education and company policies that, like pressure to deliver on time that makes the new driver vulnerable to crashes. Whereby the focus of this paper is mostly based on the disbenefits and benefits of driver education and training, the following “contemporary” reviews came up with the same conclusion.
The study of driver education and training, that was published in Australia, for Transport South Australia, came up with the literature on car-training effecting which had the following conclusion (Woolley 2000):
“Very little new evidence has emerged to support driver education and training in high schools and the bulk of the scientific literature is damning of the ability of high school driver education and training to deliver net road safety benefits. Such education generally leads to increased licensure rates and younger driver ages, causing problems which far outweigh any benefits achieved” (p. ii)
On the other hand, more additional training for novice driver training programs should take place, because “programs have been shown to change behaviors known to be linked to increases in crash risks, behaviors such as long glances inside the vehicle and failures to glance towards latent hazards.” At the same up to date there was no program that was to change the narrative of crashes and accidents among delivery drivers, with the focus on hazard anticipation, such a training program has turned out to be effective for drivers who were amateurs drivers who had experiences for over 36 months. Delivery driver training is not effective, as the job entails a lot of factors and not just training. Therefore, focus on the young Driver Training in addition to the training program is important.
Williams, A. (1999). Graduated licensing comes to the United States. Injury Prevention, 5(2), 133.
Woolley, J. (2000). In-car driver training at high schools: a literature review (No. 6/2000, HS-043 200).
Zhang, T., Li, J., Thai, H., Zafian, T., Samuel, S., & Fisher, D. L. (2016, September). Evaluation of the effect of a novice driver training program on citations and crashes. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 60, No. 1, pp. 1991-1995). Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.