Leveraging Simulation to Augment Risky Driving Attitudes and Behaviors

Young, novice drivers continue to be responsible for a disproportionate amount of negative driving outcomes.  A novice driver’s lack of: i) exposure, ii) semantic knowledge of driving situations, and iii) understanding of risky situations make them particularly vulnerable to costly mistakes while driving.  Texting while driving (TWD) is a behavior commonly engaged in by novice drivers that greatly increases the risk for accidents, injuries and mortality.  Cell phone use while driving causes deficits in performance (e.g., impaired attention to signs; braking and lane positioning deficits due to visual, motor, and cognitive distraction).  While many drivers recognize that TWD is a serious problem, many admit to engaging in the behavior frequently.  Studies have demonstrated that drivers perceive their own distracted driving performance to be better than their actual performance.  This suggests that drivers may be engaging in dangerous behavior because they believe it affects the driving performance of others, but not their own.  This is a major ongoing public health concern.  Past studies have suggested that receiving concrete performance feedback can correct perceptions of risk of driving while engaging in a distracting task, and improve subsequent driving performance. In this regard, Simulation can serve an effective tool for Education and Training.  Accordingly, the current study leverages a high fidelity driving simulator to provide performance feedback for a pilot cohort of novice adult drivers while driving distracted.  The primary goal is to change attitudes towards and subsequently reduce TWD behavior with the use of the performance feedback during the simulated TWD exercise. Along with the simulator-acquired data and graphs (e.g., speed, lane position), TWD behaviors are measured objectively with a performance monitoring “Car Chip” device installed within each participant’s vehicle during the study observation period. Car Chip records including the dates and times of each participant’s drives are compared against each participant’s text messaging records (containing dates and times of texts sent or received) for any overlap, objectively measuring in-vehicle TWD behavior. The current study presents a novel approach for evaluation and intervention to reduce distracted driving behaviors specifically for the most at-risk driving population.