Clearing a road to being driving fit by better assessing driving wellness : development of California's prospective three-tier driving-centered assessment system : technical report.

This report has two main purposes: (1) describe the development of California’s prospective 3-Tier driving-centered assessment system, and (2) present an “ecological perspective” on driver licensing. Driving-centered is an ecological concept—it means taking into consideration when, where, why, and how individual drivers customarily drive. Rather than an endpoint in delicensing drivers assessed as unsafe, 3-Tier fundamentally alters the purpose of assessment to be a starting point, if feasible, for extending the safe driving years of functionally-limited licensed drivers. The 3-Tier system integrates new assessment tools into those currently used by the Department of Motor Vehicles. All renewal applicants required to pass the department’s knowledge test are assessed on Tier 1, and those who are found to have a driving-relevant visual, mental, or physical limitation(s) are further screened on Tier 2. Based on these assessments, drivers are classified as driving well, somewhat functionally limited or extremely functionally limited; the extremely functionally-limited drivers are required to pass a Tier 3 road test to be licensed. The results of a small scale pilot study upon which the 3-Tier system was developed showed that somewhat-limited drivers, perhaps because they were less aware of their limitations, were more likely to be crash involved than extremely-limited drivers, who were probably more aware of their limitation(s) and compensated accordingly. In contrast, extremely-limited drivers were more likely to fail an office-based road test. The report concludes with 22 recommendations for statewide implementation of 3-Tier, including recommendations that the department’s R&D branch evaluate the reliability and validity of the current area drive test, and if needed, develop a better one, that this test be available to extremely limited drivers as an option for their Tier 3 road test requirement, and that the department educate somewhat-limited drivers about compensating for their limitation(s). (Author/publisher)