Reducing newly-qualified driver crash risk: Identifying behavioural targets

道路交通事故是一个重大的公共卫生挑战。2013年，英国有1713人丧生，21657人重伤。这是一场不可接受的人类悲剧，也使经济损失147亿英镑。新手司机比其他任何司机都有更高的撞车风险。撞车率在获得驾照后立即最高，并在驾驶的最初几个月内迅速下降。当人们听到这些统计数据时，他们通常将这种影响归因于“经验”。这是正确的;我们可以相信，这种安全性的提高确实是驾驶经验的结果。然而，我们不知道驾驶行为是如何随着经验而变化的;我们不知道经验丰富的司机和新手司机有什么不同。如果我们能弄清楚有经验的司机在做什么不同的事情，那么我们就可以支持新司机从他们的驾驶生涯开始就采取同样的行为。这种支持可以采取培训、测试、车载技术和立法的形式。为了确定驾驶早期的行为变化，我们将在驾驶生涯的前3个月反复采访新司机的样本。我们将重点讨论新驾驶员特别容易发生撞车的四种情况：（1）在车流中右转，（2）在弯道上失去控制，（3）有追尾风险的情况和（4）夜间驾驶。我们将使用这些结果来设计一个新的问卷，以衡量驾驶前几个月的行为变化。然后，我们将对新司机进行大规模研究，以改进我们的问卷，并测试它是否能衡量在驾驶的最初几个月内改善道路安全的驾驶行为。有证据表明，我们的措施更安全的分数是更常见的经验丰富的司机和预测较低的碰撞参与将支持其effectiveness.本研究的结果可以告知政策和实践，旨在减少与新手司机碰撞风险升高相关的危险行为。在驾驶的最初几个月里，被确定为安全改善的基础行为可以在驾驶员培训中有针对性地进行，以试图从第一天起改善新手驾驶员的道路安全。我们的措施可用于评估培训包是否在这方面是有效的。我们的工作还可以为驾驶考试的修订提供信息，以便于只向那些在所确定的行为中达到一定水平的驾驶员颁发执照。更广泛地说，该项目将有助于了解使新手司机面临更大撞车风险的行为。我们的研究结果将为有关立法的政策决定提供信息，以保护年轻司机免受碰撞。例如，在英国引入分级许可计划的压力越来越大，以禁止新手司机在驾驶的第一年内进行最危险的驾驶行为。我们的工作可以通过指出哪些行为是最重要的禁止行为来为这场辩论提供信息。我们的研究结果还可以为车内驾驶员支持技术的设计提供信息，以帮助新手驾驶员在最安全的驾驶方面。通过这些方式，我们相信我们的项目可以支持更有效的公共卫生干预措施，以减少未来新手驾驶员的撞车事故。

Road traffic crashes pose a major public health challenge. During 2013 crashes claimed 1713 UK lives and seriously injured 21657. This is an unacceptable human tragedy and also cost the economy £14.7 billion. Novice drivers have higher crash risk than any other group of drivers. Crash rates are highest immediately after the licence is obtained and decreases quickly over the first few months of driving. When people hear these statistics they usually attribute this effect to "experience". This is correct; we can be confident that this safety improvement does result from driving experience. However, we do not know how driving behaviour changes as result of experience; we do not know what it is that more experienced drivers do differently from very new drivers. If we can work out what experienced drivers are doing differently then we can support new drivers to adopt the same behaviours from the start of their driving careers. This support might take the form of training, testing, in-vehicle technology and legislation. In order to identify how behaviour changes over the early stages of driving, we will repeatedly interview a sample of new drivers over the first 3 months of their driving careers. We will focus on four situations in which new drivers are particularly vulnerable to crashes: (1) turning right across a traffic flow, (2) loss-of control on curves, (3) situations risking rear-end shunts and (4) driving at night. We will use these results to design a new questionnaire to measure the behaviours that change over the first few months of driving. We will then conduct a large scale study of new drivers to refine our questionnaire and test whether it measures the driving behaviours that underlie the road safety improvements during the early months of driving. Evidence that safer scores on our measure are more common in experienced drivers and predict lower crash involvement would be supportive of its effectiveness.The results of this study can inform policy and practice aimed at reducing risky behaviour associated with elevated crash risk in novice drivers. The behaviours identified as underlying the safety improvement in the first few months of driving can be targeted in driver training to try to improve novice drivers' road safety from day one. Our measure may be used in evaluations of whether training packages are effective in this regard. Our work could also inform revisions to the driving test to facilitate only giving licencing drivers who have reached a certain level in the behaviours identified. More broadly, the project will contribute to understanding the behaviours that put novice drivers at increased crash risk. Our results will inform policy decisions regarding legislation to protect young drivers from crash. For example there is mounting pressure to introduce a Graduated Licensing Scheme in the UK to prohibit novice drivers from the riskiest driving behaviours during their first year of driving. Our work can inform this debate by indicating which behaviours are most important to prohibit. Our results can also inform the design of in-car driver support technologies to aid novice drivers in the most safety-relevant aspects of driving. In these ways we believe our project can support more effective public health interventions to reduce crash involvement among novice drivers in the future.