Getting drivers off auto pilot

A Waikato University researcher says because of that young drivers are often over-confident but too inexperienced to deal with driving.

Drivers don't like change so it needs to be done in a subtle way, say two Waikato University psychology researchers.

Samuel Charlton and Robert Isler, members of the university's traffic and road safety research team, have extensively studied driving behaviours and conditions.

They say it is disturbing that the Waikato region had more road deaths - nearly 80 - in the first eight months of this year than for all of last year.

Dr Isler said professional driving instruction needed a higher profile; Dr Charlton said he believed in subtly changing the way people drove to stop them motoring on auto pilot.

American research shows that brain concentration does not develop fully until a person reaches 25.

Because of that, Dr Isler said, young drivers were often over-confident but too inexperienced to deal with driving.

"We don't place attention on driver education," he said.

Professionals could teach what parents could not, such as eye scanning, hazard deduction and risk management.

Although there were many reasons for crashes, including speed and alcohol, said Dr Charlton, a lack of attention played a big part.

"People take driving for granted because they think they are so good at it. People talk on their cellphone, talk to the passengers and think about something else.

"They don't worry about hazards because they don't occur that often."

Dr Charlton said it was hard to convince people who had been building roads for years that things that seemed like common sense - like making roads wider - were not always better.

Often, they just made people drive faster.

- NZPA