Interactions in the physical environment: - PowerPoint Presentation

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Interactions in the physical environment:Potential negative consequences of increasing control in the road environment for safe ‘Driving on sight’

John Parkin

Professor of Transport Engineering

DateSlide2

OutlineWhat is the issue?Why is it important?Who is the audience?What are the relevant behaviours?

What are the interventions?

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1 What is the issue?A right to use the highway: 'take it as you find it' and 'drive on sight'.

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There is ever increasing ‘control’ for capacity and safety reasons.

Are road users expectations changing as a result of increasing control, and if so, how are they changing?Slide4

MotorwaysSmart motorwaysVariable mandatory speed limitsVariable message signsTraffic OfficersControl rooms

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Rural roadsSpeed controlVMS warning signs at priority junctionsIn vehicle navigation

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Urban roadsTraffic signals: trend is for ‘no conflicting movements’No conflict with pedestriansPedestrians have countdownsMove from zebras to pelicans and from pelicans to puffins

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Shared spaceThe ultimate drive on sightWorks when speeds are controlled on the approaches

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But the drivers sees a continuous systemDoes more control lead to behaviour which assumes control always exists?Does it lead to subliminal assumptions that drivers are in a ‘system’ rather than ‘on the road’?Is there heightened frustration at being controlled (e.g. speed cameras)?Does then the absence of control, lead to better or worse behaviour?Will more control lead to less ‘ability’ to drive on sight?Does the divergent trend give us opportunities to retrain driver thought?Where is the balance to be struck in all this?

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RiskReward is the benefit of risk; for a government action based on known scientific facts:Perceptible risk: risk controlled by an individual, e.g. climbing a tree.Risks perceptible by science: e.g. infectious diseases.Virtual risk: risk with no settled science, e.g. future risk of climate changeManagement of a risk modifies the risk (Cf. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle)

Four person types:The individualist who wishes to be relatively free from the control of others.The egalitarian

who wants more control to guard against a catastrophe.The hierarchist who regards the management of risk as being for those in authority.The fatalist

who does not have a view and will take whatever comes.

Adams (1985, 1995 and 1999)

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Everyone takes risks, therefore accidents will result.Self-risk versus risk to others and important issue‘Accept to forgo’ or ‘pay to partake’:The price a person is willing to pay to stop someone polluting the air is not necessarily the same as the price someone would accept to stop polluting.Reversing the polarity and apply the analogy to risk, what is the price a road user might accept from another (more inherently threatening) road user to compensate for their presence on the road?Sanctions for creating self-risk unlikely to work because of risk compensation

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Road danger reduction‘Dangerous situations’ do not necessarily result in collisions because they make us more carefulWhen it comes to safety, we want a reduction in the danger that others present to usWe should be interested in the chances of people dying or being hurt as they cross a road, rather than in the net number of casualties at a particular road crossingWhen motor vehicle drivers relax, they increase danger to the vulnerable;"Safer" cars are more dangerous for those outside themDavis (1993)

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2 Why is it important?The road safety community tends to identify a risk and then attempt to eliminate the risk.Signs and linesSurface treatmentLightingPedestrian phasesPedestrian guardrailHumps and bumps

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Incremental risk elimination successful over the decades.But controlling and divisive?Other approaches, e.g. Manual for StreetsRisk managed by reliance on ‘drive on sight’

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More drive on sight, rather than less?

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Holistic philosophy of ‘risk management’ rather than the simpler approach of ‘risk elimination’.The road safety community should be interested in the effect of interventions on the balance of risk and the way road users respond.

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3 Who is the audience?Highway and traffic engineers; Road Safety Auditors;Writers of standards, guidance and regulations;Road user instructors;Road users

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4 What are the behaviours?

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Factors

Drivers / pedestrians

Percentage

PERCEPTUAL ERRORS

Looked but failed to see

Misjudgement of speed or distance

1090 / 53

31.8%

LACK OF SKILL

Inexperience

lack of judgementwrong action or decision

462 / -

12.8%

MANNER OF EXECUTION

- Deficiency in actions: too fast, improper overtaking, failed to look, following too closely, wrong path

- Deficiency in behaviour: irresponsible or reckless, frustrated, aggressive

1153 / 107

94 / -

35.0%

2.6%

IMPAIRMENT: alcohol, fatigue, drugs, Illness, emotional distress

632 / 7

17.8%

TOTAL

3431 / 167

100%

Sabey

and Taylor, 1980Slide19

6 What are the interventions? Educating professionalsThe difference between risk management and risk eliminationUser response to control may not conform to expectationRoad usersEmphasis on drive on sight in all things

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ReferencesAdams, J.G.U. (1985) Risk and freedom. The record of road safety regulation. Transport publishing projects. London.Adams, J.G.U. (1995) Risk. University College London Press. London.Adams, J.G.U. (1999) Risky business. The management of risk and uncertainty. Adam Smith Institute. London. http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/risky-business.pdfDavis, R. (1992) Death on the Streets. Leading Edge. Available at: https://rdrf.org.uk/death-on-the-streets-cars-and-the-mythology-of-road-safety/Sabey, B.E. and Taylor, H. (1980) The known risks we run: the highway. TRRL Supplementary Report 567. Transport Research Laboratory:

Crowthorne

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