This paper looks at the use of a fixed-base driving simulator to study effects of both road experience and PC-based risk awareness training on younger drivers' part/task simulator driving performance in risky traffic scenarios. Three groups of drivers were run on the simulator: 1 group that trained on the PC (younger, inexperienced drivers) and 2 groups that received no PC training (younger, inexperienced, and experienced drivers). In general, the younger, inexperienced drivers trained on a PC operated their vehicles in risky scenarios in ways that differed measurably from those of the untrained younger, inexperienced drivers and, more importantly, in ways that the authors believe would decrease their exposure to risk considering that, on average, their behaviour was more similar to the behaviour of the untrained, experienced drivers. More research is needed to demonstrate whether these findings apply on the open road to the wider population of younger drivers. However, at least initially, the research suggests that PC-based risk awareness training programs have the potential to reduce the high crash rate among younger, inexperienced drivers. (Author/publisher)
Abstract