DISTRACTED drivers in Warwickshire are being helped to pay more attention to the road.
University of Warwick researchers have developed an evidence-based intervention to change people’s awareness of distracted driving.
The research draws upon statistics from the Department for Transport, indicating that human error accounts for 69 per cent of incidents in the UK. Notably, 39 per cent of these arise from drivers failing to observe their surroundings properly, often due to distractions or lapses in attention while driving.
The ‘Change Blindness’ intervention was subsequently developed by Dr Melina Kunar and Professor Derrick Watson from the Warwick Department of Psychology and is designed to help drivers recognise their own limitations in observation and emphasises the importance of paying attention to the road.
Change blindness refers to an individual’s ability to identify a change that occurs when their vision is disturbed temporarily. For example, while distracted by a conversation or a rapid eye movement.
During the intervention, individuals are shown two images with a blank grey screen in between each image. The images are of a simulated driving situation in which a change was made between each image shown. For example, an approaching vehicle in the distance being removed from the scene or a change in posted speed limits.
By surveying participants perceived observational skills prior to and after undertaking the intervention, it was shown that the intervention had a positive effect on their awareness of their observational skills. This was evidenced by a decrease in participant over-confidence after the intervention when asked whether “you/others see everything while driving”.
Research Lead Dr Kunar said: “All road-users need attention – be they drivers or pedestrians. Our research has found that the Change Blindness intervention is a highly effective and easy to use way to demonstrate the importance of attention for safer road use.”
The work has helped to inform driver education programmes and local road safety campaigns. The intervention has been recently adopted by the Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership which has used the intervention across secondary schools, army barracks and local authority training programmes.
