You look familiar: Learner driver hazard identification on familiar and unfamiliar roads

Abstract

Road traffic injuries remain a leading cause of death worldwide, especially for individuals aged 15-29 years. The ability to perceive and respond appropriately to hazards while driving is closely related to driving experience and schemata. Although many studies focus on differences between novice and experienced drivers, the learner driver population is often under-represented. In this paper we present stage one of a longitudinal study of learner drivers designed to assess hazard identification over the period spent learning to drive under supervision. Participants viewed videos of driving scenarios and were asked to identify hazards and potential hazards. There were ten videos, five from local familiar locations and five from an unfamiliar foreign location. Findings showed no significant difference between the locations, whereas there were significant differences between the number of hazards across the five presented road types (motorway, hinterland, urban, suburban, city). This suggests that with limited driving experience, the schemata adopted by learner drivers in local areas are readily applied to areas that they have not previously driven in.