Testing attention in traffic situations.

Author(s)
Campozano, T.A.N. & Rozestraten, R.J.A.
Year
Abstract

An important risk factor in traffic accidents is lack of attention responsible for more than 40% of traffic accidents. The aim of this study is to verify the correlation of the results of currently used attention tests used in psychological assessment of drivers and attention test based on scenes of traffic situations. The driver has to attend to all the elements that can give a clue for safe driving: traffic signs, stop lights, pedestrians, cyclists, speeding bumps, etc. The results of a little research about correlation between common attention tests and attention in traffic situations will be presented here. Experimental subjects were subjected to visual acuity and selected attention tests. The results obtained are discussed in relation to results of test applications made nowadays in Brazil, where only 1% are judged not to be able to drive a car for psychological reasons and can not receive the driver license. On the other hand the country has about 40.000 fatal traffic victims a year, fast all committed by drivers who had a driver license and who were considered able to drive by the psychological driver assessment. Something didn't fit well. Why do so many psychologically able drivers cause such a mass of terrible accidents? Something must be wrong. For the covering abstract see ITRD E137120.

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Publication

Library number
C 49133 (In: C 49130 CD-ROM) /83 / ITRD E137123
Source

In: Measures to assess risk in traffic as reflected by individual test performance, in attitude measurement and by behaviour and interaction : proceedings of the extra workshop on International Cooperation on Theory and Concepts on Traffic Safety of the International Cooperation on Theories and Concepts in Traffic Safety ICTCT, Campo Grande, Brazil, 21-23 March 2005, Pp., 14 ref.

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