Behaviour in yesterdays' traffic. Messages from the early days.

Historically traffic psychology has its roots in work on industrial accident prevention. Drivers of vehicles in the old days were regarded as factory workers operating a machine. First steps in recognizing the rather wide descretion that drivers have in deciding goals and behaviour were taken by psycho- analysts. Until now, traffic psychology and psychological accident research are no independent academic subjects in Germany. An opponent remark is presented by P.Levelt.