Reducing Fleet Crash Risk:A Review of Recent Research

Dr Lisa Dorn

Literature Review

Recent Data• United Nations General Assembly - Decade of Action

• 1.3m die each year and projected to double by 2030• 20m injured each year

• Road traffic crashes biggest cause of work-related death and injury• 14 people killed a week and 160 seriously injured (DfT, 2009)• 70-100,000 non-fatal work-related road traffic crashes each year

(The Labour Force Survey 2010)• 52,806 drivers/riders became casualties in at-work journeys (DfT, 2011) • 30-40,000 crashes cause more than 3 days absence

(The Labour Force Survey 2010)

• Driver skill improves with practice - automation of information processing and psychomotor skill

• In-vehicle driver training• Driver behaviour motives,

habits and driving style - may become less worried about safety over time

• Behaviour-based approach

Driver Skills and Driver Behaviour

Behaviour and the Brain

• All behaviour is an output from the brain • Billions of neurons connected via trillions of synapses• 11 million sensations zip down the neural pathways per

sec• 40 sensations delivered to conscious awareness per sec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90cj4NX87Yk

The Brain and Behaviour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ1QXSn_cfU

• Our reality is a construction • Sensory impressions, stored memories, personality and

emotional assessments• Bayes theory - probability of future event calculated based on

past events and constantly updating • Signals decay - important hypothesis may disappear before the

next prediction made• Attention drifts in unusual ways - shifting from one thought and

hypothesis to another

FDRI Factors

Situational RiskAge, driving experience, mileage, licence, crash history etc

Behavioural Risk FactorsWork Related Risk

Aggression Hazard Monitoring Driving Excitement

Driving Fatigue

Driver Coping StylesDriving FocusConfrontation

Driving ConcernsSelf Evaluation

Correction FactorsImpression Management

Driver Confidence

Driver Behaviour at Work

• Risky driving – e.g. speeding, tailgating, cutting up, lane weaving, running red lights

• Distracted, inattentive and impaired driving –improper lookout, mobile phone use, fatigue

• What is motivating this behaviour at work?

• Work demands• Unfavourable ratio between quantity of available

time and quantity of time needed to reach destination

• 3 Cranfield studies on time pressure• Drivers in a hurry almost 8 times more likely to be

impatient drivers (Beck et al, 2012)

Time Pressure

• Taking risks under time pressure seen as inevitable

• Driver stress, ineffective coping and fatigue

• Strongly correlated with (n=334) :-• Aggression (r=.34, p <.001)

• Thrill Seeking (r=.47, p < .001)

• Confrontive Coping (r=.40, p <.001)

• Emotion focused Coping (r=.36, p <.001)

• Driving Fatigue Resistance (r= -.39, p < .001)

• Task Focus Coping (r= - .30, p <.001)

Dorn and Gandolfi (2008)

Self Reported Time Pressure

• BDRI maladaptive coping strategies linked with driving

performance decrements under time pressure

• Forceful drivers drive even more forcefully under time

pressure

Dorn et al (2010)

Induced Time Pressure

Time Pressure and Time Delays

Group of Pedestrians (GP), Priority to Right (PR), Information Request (IR), Traffic Jam (TJ), Alternating Traffic Light (ATL), Urban Traffic Light (UTL), Delivery Van block (DV) and Disabled Person crossing (DP)

• Induced time pressure

• Effects of time pressure

contextual and/or chronic

Time Pressure Summary

Time pressure interaction between person and situation and linked to: • work-related attentional focus• risky driving• Increased crash risk• chronic conditions• Motivating factors (sanctions)

Organisations and Time Pressure

• Safe travel key business priority for some companies

• Positive safety climate = workload and time pressure

management and fewer errors and violations (Öz, et al, 2013)

• Integration - consider whether you have the following covered:• Policy

• Responsibility

• Organisation

• Systems

• Monitoring

Behaviour-based Interventions

• Workshops to self reflect on driver stress (FDRI)

• Clock time (real time) Vs Imaginary time (depends on forward and backward thoughts )

• Peer to peer - common decisions about future behaviour

• Commitment to change and follow-up

Thank You