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According the the World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention (2004) by the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated number of 1.2 million people are killed in road traffic crashes each year. The people injured reaches as high as 50 million. Next to HIV/AIDS, road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for age groups 5-14 and 15-29 in the year 2002. It is also the third for the age group 30-44 years, after tuberculosis. It was also predicted that by the year 2020, road traffic injuries is the third in leading causes for disability-adjusted life years, which measures the combined information on the number of years lost from premature death with the loss of health from disability.
In the Global Status Report on Road Safety (2009), also by the WHO, it is stated that there were 1.27 million deaths caused by traffic crashes in 2004. Road traffic injuries was already the leading cause of death in that year for the age group 15-29 years, while it was still second for the age group 5-14 years, and third in the age group 30-44 years.
In the Philippines, the Philippine National Police reported around 15,000 traffic accidents in 2006, with 674 fatalities, 3767 injuries, and 10, 623 instances of property damage, with 27% of traffic accidents caused by driver error.
I’m sure most of us have experienced at least one traffic accident –no matter how minor, in our lives. The first question that might pop into your mind is “What happened?” with a couple of curse words in between. Sometimes we do know and we just weren’t able to avoid it in time, and sometimes we just don’t. You’re lucky if only a few minutes got taken off of your schedule because of the accident, especially when you’re only a passenger and can easily transfer to another vehicle. But what if you’re the one driving?
Research has found that young drivers are more likely to exhibit risks of getting involved in crashes, which is probably why road traffic injuries is the second leading cause of death for the age groups we categorize as “young”. The study The development of hazard perception: Dissociation of visual orientation and hazard processing, showed that experienced drivers perceived hazards faster than inexperienced drivers. The researchers suggest that this shorter response time is not due to visual orientation, or where the drivers are looking, but rather it takes a shorter time for the expert drivers to decide whether what they saw is a hazard or not.
Experience, apparently, is found to be more important than what you learn in driving school, along with development of visual strategies that help a driver adapt to the demands of traffic. By the way, although we usually associate traffic with the slow movement of cars, as in “trafik kasi”, traffic does not only involve congestion, but everything else on the road.
The study asked twenty experienced and twenty inexperienced drivers (16 to 28 years) to look at pictures and respond with a button press instead of stepping on an actual brake –experienced drivers were those with 24 months to 8 years driving experience, while inexperienced drivers were those who were still in driving school to those who had 23 months driving experience). These pictures consisted of traffic scenes with either low, medium, or high braking affordance. Not only did the researchers record the response times of these drivers, but they also monitored the eye movement and how long the drivers fixated on the hazard before responding.
It was found that there was no change in criterion. This means there was no difference in the number of times the driver pressed on the brake, whether experienced or not. How experienced and inexperienced drivers classified a situation as being hazardous did not differ.
The researchers note, however, that their study was limited to eye movements and hazard processing, and lacked many other details that are important when driving. Driving does not only involve looking at potential hazards, but also synchronizing your body movements to adapt to these hazards –including safely adjusting speed. This is not as easy as button pressing. Also, the research did not account for peripheral vision, which is also very important in driving –the many mirrors are there for a reason.
Now that we’ve explored one possible explanation for how these traffic accidents happen, what next? According to The Good, the Bad and the Talented: Young Drivers’ Perspectives on Good Driving and Learning to Drive (2007), a good driver must maintain the right level of mental alertness and assertiveness, since driving is not only a physical activity, but also a social and emotional one. As a driver myself, I already put this in my mind whenever I drive. However, even I surprised myself with the way I acted once I got into a real accident –luckily there were no injuries –I forgot almost everything they taught me in driving school, and it took a while before I could put myself together. Personally, I think one can never be prepared for the worst things that can happen on the road –especially in Metro Manila. So I’ve prepared a list/form in case I get in another accident, and I’m making it available for everyone who visits this blog (how kind of me!). You’re welcome to leave comments and personal experiences so we can make the form better.
Since you have to exchange information with the other driver, it won't hurt to ready a list of your contact information beforehand, so you don't have to worry about it at the scene. Also keeping a list of your emergency contacts (in case your phone runs out of battery and you can't remember the digits because you're too nervous!). Keeping a list of emergency numbers in your car, such as hospitals, also won't hurt.
Christmas, S. (2007). The Good, the Bad and the Talented: Young Drivers’ Perspectives on Good Driving and Learning to Drive. Department for Transport. London: Queen’s Printer and Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
Huestegge, L., Skottke, E.-M., Anders, S., Müsseler, J., & Debus, G. (2010). The development of hazard perception: Dissociation of visual orientation and hazard processing. Transportation Research Part F , 1-8.
Philippine Accidents. (n.d.). Retrieved July 29, 2010, from Car Accidents.com: http://www.car-accidents.com/country-car-accidents/philippines-car-accidents.html
World Health Organization. (2009). Global Status Report on Road Safety: Time for Action. Geneva: World Health Organization.
World Health Organization. (2004). World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
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