LinkedIn – the complete waste for road safety moves

Well I did give it a go… tried linking to some important people involved in road safety discussions to see if smart research might help influence the development of new road safety programs by helping some of the policy types take on some smart ideas. The outcomes were rather blunt for the whole LinkedIn concept and it’s really achieving nothing at all… A few observations:

• Lots of Australian road safety types joined the LinkedIn web site and then did absolutely nothing at all. No discussion, no expertise shared, no nothing at all. Have to wonder why just a little…
• A few road safety types joined the LinkedIn web site and then did heaps – demonstrating in many cases that they were rather stupid people with limited knowledge and expertise and just wanted to express opinions based on… well… their own opinion rather than any real research knowledge and professional training relevant to road safety. We seem to have a small collection of people here in Australia who think they know some things… when they clearly do not! Pretty pointless really. I guess we have a bit of a laugh at them… but LinkedIn isn’t helpful here… it makes them believe in themselves!
• Some members of LinkedIn seem to think that they are really experts when they aren’t really – what they really are would be experts in ONE AREA rather than a few, have one bit of training without admitting that they only have one bit of training, believe their own silly opinions, and then seem to act as if there are some commercial smart reasons to encourage their opinion to have an effect. Readers involved in policy programs should look at these people with a good note of amusement… just because an engineer or statistician starts to pretend that they have sensible comments to make about psychology and behavioural issues… well that’s almost as silly as me wanting to pretend that I know about being an engineer and I, at least, would never ever pretend to be something I have not received formal training about!

So where does all of this send us… well LinkedIn is really as pointless as anything else. The policy and research people… the real ones… really can’t take the item when the self-loved people are supposed experts with self-beliefs rather than realistic understanding of their intelligence. As long as some of the Australian types with self-beliefs that their opinions and backgrounds do not really reflect their real expertise and instead favour attempts by some people to sound unreally valued… well there is no point staying a member at all.

End results… I quit as a member and I really can’t see any point staying with LinkedIn at all!

Let me know if I got it wrong of course… tee hee. 

Research might just be a little useful… perhaps?

There has been some discussion of training programs for learners and new drivers in a few areas on LinkedIn and even in some Australian media (as usual) – including some discussions here in some states and a set of media and internet opinions that seem to be, well, opinions rather than research-based recommendations.

In one group in LinkedIn I took an opportunity to state the obvious, so I thought I might repeat it here and most likely offend a few people who seem to put opinions or politics or funding desires ahead of the scientific methods that really should be used to assist in making road safety decisions that are worthwhile.

So on the basis of others’ attempts to encourage interest in a specific Australian program, I have suggested over and over the following view point that seems a little more sensible to me. I suspect it’s a rather sound approach, but one that doesn’t seem to encourage agreement because it suggests that people aren’t really as good at opinions as they think they are! Might be a bit negative… but really… it’s either a sound opinion based on consistent research findings from multiple sources or… well… it seems pointless.

So we have different approaches where some people are rather more focused on scientifically-sound and consistent research rather than popular, political, or money-earning methods commonly underway here and elsewhere? The Australian keys2drive program and recent ideas supported in the state of NSW seem obvious in their failure to acknowledge sound research, where at least the current program for new drivers under extensive research trial in the state of Victoria may provide some data that informs the effectiveness (or more likely the otherwise ineffectiveness) of young driver and professional training programs.

None of this is overly difficult for high quality policy decisions and programs – there are only three possible sets of research results when people actually take some sound time to investigate good information rather than opinions.

- The training program may have no effect (by far the most common outcome) in which case… well… it doesn’t help so don’t use it…. especially when there are some rather odd people out there with opinions rather than well-considered research-based recommendations…

- the training program has a positive effect in consistent research studies and is therefore worth adopting (hmmm… none of these seem to have consistent positive outcomes so in general the policy is simple… despite regardless people having “opinions”)

- there is no consistent research on a particular approach … a common issue… so do the research in a sound scientific and well-sampled method with clear outcome measures (like in Victoria) and use that outcome as the basis for a decision.

Just a thought! Seems reasonably simple

This point of view does not seem particularly difficult, and some opinions seem completely out of a sensible point of view:

- if the research is consistently negative as a road safety program… don’t support it

- if the research is consistently positive as a road safety program… it deserves inclusion as a way to save lives and reduce injuries

- if the current research is insufficient to draw a consistent conclusion… we need research in a scientifically sound fashion to help us make sensible decisions before implementing whatever it is.

The alternatives that are common – factless or poorly considered opinions, politics, or wanting an income as a priority – really don’t do much to help improve road safety!

Some odd opinion about speed limits in a LinkedIn group?

An Australian without the sort of behavioural scientist background that seems to help with a sophisticated view about road safety behavioural issues expressed some opinions that don’t seem consistent with research, so I did have a look at the issue and some research just out of interest. This is the point I raised on the LinkedIn group called “Road Safety International” that is worth a look every now and then… just to see how some people see themselves as experts when perhaps they are not?

So the opinion from the other person (an Australian called Lambert) started with this sort of approach:

“For around 20 years there has been an escalating emphahsis on enforcement of speed limits including in some jurisdictions enforcing the limits with signifcantly reduced tolerances. THe justifications range from the “speed kills” mantra to the work of Kloeden & McLean and similar that relates increasing crash rates to exceeding speed limits, or the work of Nilsson and Edvik and similar that relates increasing crash rates to increasing average speeds.” (John Lambert, 2012 entry in LinkedIn)

With a strange and generally unsupported view of speed enforcement and speed limits and their roles that continued on in his pieces… and seem a little… well… odd and not accepted by people with real expertise in relation to behavioural issues and research…

So my view was consistent with the sort of research material that other people were using in the discussion. If nothing else it is interesting to see how sound and consistent research does make an important argument against biased views. My view in the discussion group was written as follows… just because I thought it was work mentioning it here as well in the group…

With research background and training and experience in behavioural science I do wonder about where opinions come from when they are largely inconsistent with real research. It is interesting that some people have opinions that really don’t match the broader and consistent findings of long-term research. This issue raised initially is one like this – it just is not consistent with expertise or consistent research.

I took just ten minutes to grab a few recent findings that relevant to the importance of speed limit issues… and nothing I could find that supported the sort of notion suggested earlier… I quickly looked at:

Svenson et al (2011) note that their results relate to speed perceptions and conclude as we might expect based on research that driver decisions about speed-related behaviours had potential dangers and that speed limits play an important safety role.

Svenson (2009) had noted earlier that drivers made incorrect decisions about safety consequences when speed limits are increased – and that these poor unbiased decisions are commonly made by people who do not understand their own commonly held biases. This is an interesting argument given the sort of biases in opinions that seem to be influencing the occasional opinions made by people without real expertise!

Friedman (2009) looked at US speed limit changes and noted that “We found a 3.2% increase in road fatalities attributable to the raised speed limits on all road types in the United States. The highest increases were on rural interstates (9.1%) and urban interstates (4.0%). We estimated that 12545 deaths and 36583 injuries in fatal crashes were attributable to increases in speed limits across the United States.“

The data in this sort of project is rather profound and does need to be considered – there are profound factors relating to speed limits that cannot be ignored just because they seem to influence the driving preferences of one opinion-expression owner.

Yamane (2008) showed clear evidence that “For collision with motor vehicles in transit driver death, ORs ranged from 1.12 to 2.22; all the ORs were significant.” – drawing a conclusion that US states with higher speed limits had higher fatal crash levels that were consistent and reliable. There were variations across crash types, but the results were unsurprisingly in this report.

One of the most interesting results were in Mannering’s (2009) report. He notes that “In recent decades, it has become more common for speed limits to be set for political reasons rather than for safety reasons. As a consequence, the motoring public seems to have increasingly begun questioning the rationality of speed limits” and then in relation to some biased decision making concludes that “Other variables found to be significant factors in determining the speed above the speed limit at which safety is first threatened include age, gender, being previously stopped for speeding, and drivers’ ethnicity.”

This does raise some issues about the person who started this discussion in relation to the value of speed limits as safety issues here in Australia? He seems to have a political leaning, is older, male,…

Perhaps the biased opinions in relation to some road safety issues are related to largely irrelevant factors that don’t really relate to consistent research results and could be ignored? This seems to me to be the most important issue here – it really doesn’t matter at all what his personal, biased opinion might be about a safety issue – the key here is whether the policy and action decisions in road safety are related to research-supported patterns of behavioural patterns and safety outcomes.

What is the point otherwise?

Really… any supposed opinions that are not well based on consistent research findings don’t really attract positive reactions for obvious reasons!

… and for the reference reader who wants to find the research, it’s available:

Friedman and Hedeker (2009) Long-Term Effects of Repealing the National Maximum Speed Limit in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, Sep2009, Vol. 99 Issue 9, p1626-1631,

Mannering (2009) An empirical analysis of driver perceptions of the relationship between speed limits and safety. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, Vol 12(2), Mar, 2009. pp. 99-106.

Svenson (2009) Driving speed changes and subjective estimates of time savings, accident risks and braking. Applied Cognitive Psychology, May2009, Vol. 23 Issue 4, p543-560

Svenson et al. 2011. Braking from different speeds: Judgments of collision speed if a car does not stop in time. Accident Analysis and Prevention, Vol 45, Mar, 2012. pp. 487-492.

Yamane (2008) Motor vehicle driver death and high state maximum speed limits: 1991-1993 Accident Analysis and Prevention, Vol 40(5), Sep, 2008. pp. 1690-1694.

Just a few thoughts about what real research might say …

Apparently my suggestion (on LinkedIn) that Ian Faulks’ was expressing a bit of a sense of humour about the NSW idea (less learner experience and a new education course instead) was unfair and I do apologise. Turns out that I was wrong about that conclusion! It seems that Ian and others in NSW are quite positive about it!

That does raise an interesting issue though. The article written by Ian Faulks today (and mentioned in LinkedIn) calls the NSW approach as ‘acknowledged worldwide as a blue ribbon model approach’, but he doesn’t really tell readers in that article what the road safety research might be saying.

So I thought I could help a little, given that I have read a fair bit in this area and done a little work from time to time… I thought that just a few papers might help those NSW people make a decision about whether they should remove something that works and attempt to replace it with something that has little evidence at all and therefore may put young drivers at a higher risk. I have even listed some references for people to read – out of a really large sample of relevant research material.

Even I managed to summarise relevant research in this area. Way back in 2004 I reviewed and published a stack of research and concluded that ‘the general conclusion being that driving experience is a key factor in the development both of relatively simple, vehicle-control skills and more-complex, cognitive skills. The latter include information-processing skills, selfcalibration, hazard and risk perception, and safety-related motivation or attitudes.’ (Harrison, 2004). The driving experience research seemed consistent in its conclusion back then that on-road driving experiences were important.

An emphasis on long periods of experience really isn’t surprising given the high level of consistent research relating to a range of safety-related and skill-based behaviours. The references were all cited in that paper, of course. Even Harrison et al (1997) actually provided a basis for the Victorian learner experience decision – partly based on consistent research that agrees with Swedish research that at least 110 hours of experience (‘magical’ perhaps) is safer than 50 odd hours for learners.

I wonder why a research outcome is called ‘magical’, and why there is some odd level of ignoring going on so NSW learners will be able to have substantially less than the research outcomes supported. Personal opinions that differ from consistent research always seem a little odd to me.

Local reviews are consistent – Christie (2001) concluded that ‘In particular, the effectiveness of driver training programs for learner drivers, young/recently licensed drivers and experienced drivers were investigated. The review suggests that driver training cannot be considered an effective crash countermeasure and that other approaches such as increased supervision and graduated licensing for novice drivers are likely to make greater and more lasting contributions to road safety.’

The same conclusions seem to be common overseas. Mayhew and Simpson (2002) noted as the result of a detailed review of research that ‘international literature provides little support for the hypothesis that formal driver instruction is an effective safety measure.’

Later on, Mayhew (2007) examining actual research noted ‘Driver education programs have yet to demonstrate consistent attainment of their safety objectives. Moreover, they have not been found to enhance the safety effectiveness of graduated licensing programs — indeed, some practices, for example, “time discounts” for driver education have actually had a detrimental effect on teen safety.’

Should we encourage people in NSW to have an opinion to reduce driving experience time and to replace it with some sort of course is a positive thing? Mayhew argues that education programs need research support that provides sound evaluation results in relation to young driver safety. This seems a reasonable suggestion rather than making an assumption about NSW being a blue ribbon regardless of what it does.

Consistent research findings really do show that education programs for young drivers and learners are pointless from a safety point of view. Consistent Swedish work (eg Nolen et al, 2002) shows that education programs have effects on things like attitudes and beliefs but have no empirical evidence in relation to crash involvement! They appear less effective than on-road supervised practice.

The Swedes – unlike NSW – were at least interested in doing proper research before running education programs. Engstrom et al (2003) focused on the importance of showing an education program really works in safety consequences before implementing the program. VicRoads is taking that Swedish idea to make sure a young-driver course works before spreading it around. NSW doesn’t seem to take this sort of serious approach before stating that something is a good thing.

Of course the Swedes themselves managed to show that education courses have some surprisingly unsafe outcomes! Nolen et al (2001) make this point very certain and their results suggest NSW may cause harm rather than positive outcomes if they adopt training instead of on-road experience.

There are some interesting educational hints in some research studies that may be worth discussing as they are further researched and improved – a Danish study (Cartensen, 2002) suggests some hints of benefits from professional training and no private involvement (not quite like Australia) have some partial benefits for some crash types. It is important to note that this is not enough research to justify taking a good program away yet, though.

What does this mean to a real researcher? From my point of view it is worth conducting sound research programs to assess the potential value of new programs, but expressing opinions about ‘magical’ things and ‘blue ribbon’ programs just seem to encourage unsound approaches that may or may not help or hinder the safety of road users. The VicRoads approach where a high-quality evaluation of a young driver program that will measure a safety outcome before it is forced into place seems like a much cleverer approach.

 

Just A Few References …

Cartensen (2002) The effect on accident risk of a change in driver education in Denmark Accident Analysis and Prevention 34 111–121

Christie (2001) The Effectiveness of Driver Training as a Road Safety Measure: A Review of the Literature. RACV Report 01/03, Melbourne.

Engstrom et al (2003) Young novice drivers, driver education and training: Literature review. VTI Rapport 491A. Linkoping, Sweden.

Harrison (2004) Investigation of the driving experience of a sample of Victorian learner drivers Accident Analysis and Prevention 36 885–891

Harrison et al (1997) Guidelines for Learner Drivers: Development of Broad Guidelines to Assist the Development of Safe Driving Skills Amongst Learner Drivers. Monash University Accident Research Centre, Clayton, Vic.

Mayhew (2007) Driver education and graduated licensing in North America: Past, present, and future Journal of Safety Research 38 229–235

Mayhew & Simpson (2002) The safety value of driver education and training. Injury Prevention 2002;8(Suppl II):ii3–ii8

Nolen et al. (2002) PILOT – Further education of young drivers. Final Report. VTI Rapport 457. Linkoping, Sweden

Nolen and Nyberg (2001) An experimental study of the effect of two training strategies on the driving performance of young drivers. VTI Rapport 463. Linkoping, Sweden.

Yet another weak decision – NSW erk

It is not really complex – decisions and programs in the road safety world are most effective and do something for the safety of road users if they are consistent with sound, well-constructed research studies that link the things done with positive safety outcomes. These research studies are methodologically sound, based on sound samples, make use of other research and theory, and are published in peer-reviewed contexts to ensure their quality.

It’s not complicated at all really… well… as long as you take the research seriously and avoid the temptation to do politically-sensitive things, avoid doing things that give some people financial benefits, or avoid listening seriously to people who pretend to be “experts” when indeed they don’t really have high levels of expert knowledge, education, and long careers in the road safety research area.

So… in Victoria at the moment is a 120 hour learner driver requirement based on consistent research that there really is a safety-related outcome when this level of real-world, on-road experience is required. This is positive when compared to learners with lower levels of experience. Sound research supports it, and there is related research in diverse skill developments in other areas too.

In Victoria there is also a current, large-scale research project looking now at whether a safety-related course or program has an extra good effect on young drivers. Victoria is taking into account the international and consistent research that shows that these courses and programs do NOT have evidence yet supporting positive safety effects on young drivers. This research evidence in other areas is consistent and thorough – there is no consistent evidence that doing a course, working as a group, or doing professional driver training sessions have positive safety effects. This is why VicRoads is so consistent about the 120 hour requirement and so careful about a sophisticated research project underway right now.

If Victoria does show that a new program is effective based on sound, thorough research currently underway, then experts like me will be very agreeable about starting the new program as part of what Victoria does.

What about the news from NSW (http://bit.ly/AzI3ha) where they are apparently reducing the learner experience requirement if learners do a course with content apparently suggested by some NSW people.

If there is NO consistent research supporting courses and professional training for learners; if there is consistent research suggesting on-road driving experience results in the development of better, safer driving skills; and if NSW has not played a significantly important role in the current Victorian research project (even though NSW once had some real interest in real involvement in this large-scale project with a proper sample size but departed for some reason)… then NSW is making a decision that is more likely to result in a reduction in safety outcomes for young drivers.

A NSW decision is ignorant of sound, consistent, international research findings and is making a decision that real road safety experts (you know… the specialist career people with higher level education and skills in relevant areas like me) are rather unlikely to support. It’s a NSW expectation that the sound research predicts will result in more injuries and deaths rather than less!

Think about this difference then…

• Victoria makes most of its safety-related requirements based on the high quality research and the expertise to increase safety outcomes for young drivers. Only then does it go on to assess some alternatives using sound research before adopting them…
• NSW ignores the consistent research and seems to adopt programs and policy that are consistently associated with reduced safety levels for young drivers and has no sound research at all.

As someone who is an expert and with at least a little research background… I’d be strongly advising parents to think about moving to Victoria to avoid missing the learner experience requirement… at least it is known to have good effects on safety at this stage, and at least the Victorian decision makers cope with the facts rather than taking advice from people who at least appear from my point of view to be less-skilled, less-cautious, and more make-money decision makers.

Just a thought… and let me add that if the well-research Victorian course research does produce some sound, safety-related improvement results… well then I’m likely to be all for it. Trusting supposed, self-claimed experts in NSW without a good research study is pretty sad though.

A Free Book for Parents of Learners

I prepared a book some time ago for helping learners in Victoria. I have now spent some time preparing a new book format that I thought I could provide freely to parents of learner drivers for a while!

It is based on the sort of approach safety experts favour in the Australian context, where there is a focus on learners getting a range of experiences supervised by their parents or other experienced drivers. It suggests one way of approaching the learner period and helping learner drivers develop skills over their time as a learner driver.

It draws on a bit of research and some easy ideas. It isn’t meant to be the only thing to help parents and learners – it is just one set of ideas that parents can think about and use if they want. It certainly isn’t a magical safety thing… parents and learners are all so different that it seems a bit silly to assume that one set of ideas will work for everyone! Parents can use some ideas in the book, but will also benefit from many other ideas they should get from others.

The book “From the Kerb to Traffic” is provided as a PDF file, but interested parents will need to send an email to me to get a download address on the internet. Getting the book is described on our local WordPress Material for Parents page here online.

The only other comment is to emphasise that this is NOT a commercial item and no-one should use it as a commercial item. It is specifically for parents, not instructors, and focuses on one way to help learners that parents can take up or ignore depending on how things suit their situation and learner drivers. This book is not designed for instructors or any commercial use.

I hope the book is useful to a few parents who enjoy one way of helping learner drivers!

Today – some mostly useful discussion about safety issues

At last it is useful to have a look at The Age articles about longer-term safety issues and data… at last! Have a look at today’s material on:

• Some flexible crash data from 1987
• Comments on the data
• Some speed related crash issues
• Information about a policing member and some recent research results!

Apart from a few small concerns (such as relying in one part on the usual research-baseless notion that young driver education programs are worthwhile), the discussions and provision of data were much better than usually achieved. A real newspaper improvement this time!

The articles are worth a read – especially looking at things like:

• Changes in fatality crash data over time. Some data might help some of the less-informed readers understand a little about crash information.
• Information about the complexities but professional expertise associated with police activity in Victoria.
• The excellent series of reports on young driver issues released by the Australian Institute of Family Studies – which I have been lucky enough to be included as a co-author in the reports!
• The excellent comment from the researcher (Stuart Newstead) in which he shares my view stated yesterday (below) that high speed issues are indeed a crash problem (that one The Age author did not seem to understand yesterday). Isn’t it nice to be followed!

I guess the key issue though, apart from opening research to help the uninformed learn something, is to encourage the journalist types to avoid falling for unsupported members of the public with some ideas that have no real research support at all. Now THAT would be a nice change!