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The inexperienced driver |
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Learning to drive
Driving is a skill that most people seem to master, at least in a rudimentary fashion. It does require particular intelligence, skill r coordination for basic driving. There are three phases:
1. Early or cognitive phase where the driver consciously choses every move
2. Intermediate or associative phase as basic skills become habitual
3. Final or autonomous phase where the mind is freed from thinking about how to drive
Learners
In the early, or cognitive phase the learner driver has to develop an understanding of the components of driving - where are the controls, what do they do, what response can I expect? The learner devotes full attention to the task and increases skill by observing the response of the car and getting feedback from the instructor.
The beginner's eye scans a wide area including irrelevant directions including the sky. After a few weeks the eye fixated increasingly on relevant fields such as the roadway. It takes time to estimate road position from peripheral clues rather than looking directly at the road edge. The first few times behind the wheel almost all of the learner-driver's mental capacity is required just to maintain the vehicle's position in the roadway. The learner is substantially overloaded with information and fearful of the consequences of their actions. The fear diminishes as skills are acquired.
Probationary drivers
In the associative phase, the probationary driver explores strategies for different driving challenges and gains experience from the feedback, gradually acquiring specific knowledge about what behaviour is required in different traffic situations. Objectively, driving is a risk activity for a probationary driver, yet not associated with fear of consequence. A person who is fearful of leaning too far out a third floor window because they are concerned about the consequences of hitting the ground at 50 km/hr, has no concern about the implications of driving at that speed.
The crash rate in the first two years of driving rapidly diminishes as skills and experience are acquired. A driver with little experience will approach a red light in the same manner regardless of other clues, whilst an experienced driver may gently slow down over a longer distance if stopping seems inevitable, but maintain higher speed if there are few vehicles stopped and the light has been red for some time, anticipating that it may not be necessary to sop at all.
For the intermediate (probationary) driver driving is still a significant cognitive task and low doses of alcohol produce a more marked impairment than they do for more experienced drivers. Where legal limits have been reduced for younger drivers, crash rates have fallen. The zero alcohol tolerance for probationary drivers has good research backing.
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