Role and limit of safety education, and necessity of safety support systems by a car and ITS : successful control of risky driving and over dependence on the safety support systems.

The causes of traffic accidents are, firstly, driver error and, secondly driver's delay in information processing, and can happen in the information processing stages of perception, judgement and operation. Errors in information processing may be caused by speeding, distraction and unstable and rapid driving which may arise as a result of individual psychological traits. Sex and age are known to be important factors in driver behaviour. Females are less aggressive, and more cooperative than males in general. Women's driving, and that of older drivers, is slow, moderate and gentle in contrast to that of male, and younger drivers who adopt a quick, vigorous and aggressive style. The typology of accidents of male and female drivers is different. Accidents due to speeding and drinking are observed more in males, while those resulting from defective perception and operating skills are observed more in females. Dementia and other diseases also produce serious problems in the information processing stages, resulting in high accident probabilities. Another factor influencing accident probability is whether or not a hazard is generated when two vehicles come into close proximity. The experiences of such incidents by a driver are infrequent, but increase directly with time and distance of driving. The paper discusses the role and limits of safety education in accident reduction. Safe driving reduces over time as the driver becomes more mentally exhausted and is therefore able to focus less energy on maintaining safe driving and is increasingly likely to fail to recognise the possibility of danger. The innate mechanism governing driver behaviour is positive or negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is safe, accident free, driving for safe driving behaviour. Risky, erratic or aggressive or inattentive driving is rewarded by accidents (negative reinforcement). An accident will only happen if all the conditions are met and accidents are infrequent. This is why drivers become overconfident in their own abilities with the result that safe driving is reduced and a shift to dangerous driving occurs. The possibility that drivers may place too much dependence on certain types of safety support system (risk compensation) is discussed. For the covering abstract see ITRD E138091. This paper is available from http://www.ictct.org/workshops/07-Beijing/53Taniguchi202209.pdf.