Evaluation research suggests that professional driver education and training has little effect on reducing the crash involvements of young drivers. Driver education and training programs have been criticised as being unsystematically designed and lacking an empirical or theoretical basis. The Goals for Driver Education (GDE) is a theoretical framework developed to address these criticisms. The GDE defines four hierarchical levels of driving behaviours and influences on driving and three individualised Person-specific factors that should be considered in driver education and training programs. The aim of this study was to compare and contrast, in a methodologically rigorous manner, the perceptions that young drivers (n = 22; Mage = 17.80 years, SD = 6.54 months) and driver educators (n = 10; Mage = 54.5 years, SD = 9.21 years) have of a professional driver education and training course they participated in or facilitated. Eight semi-structured focus groups were conducted and the GDE was used to direct the collection and analysis of the data. Young drivers mainly discussed basic driving skills located on the lower levels of the GDE rather than higher level abstract factors that increase risk for young drivers. Driver educators tended to group particular GDE levels and Person-specific factors together when discussing the driving course and paid limited attention to Goals and contexts of driving. Results suggest that driver educators should provide direct instruction regarding the more abstract social and contextual factors that influence driving to potentially increase the efficacy of driver education and training as a safety countermeasure.

Evaluation research suggests that professional driver education and training has little effect on reducing the crash involvements of young drivers. Driver education and training programs have been criticised as being unsystematically designed and lacking an empirical or theoretical basis. The Goals for Driver Education (GDE) is a theoretical framework developed to address these criticisms. The GDE defines four hierarchical levels of driving behaviours and influences on driving and three individualised Person-specific factors that should be considered in driver education and training programs. The aim of this study was to compare and contrast, in a methodologically rigorous manner, the perceptions that young drivers (n = 22; Mage = 17.80 years, SD = 6.54 months) and driver educators (n = 10; Mage = 54.5 years, SD = 9.21 years) have of a professional driver education and training course they participated in or facilitated. Eight semi-structured focus groups were conducted and the GDE was used to direct the collection and analysis of the data. Young drivers mainly discussed basic driving skills located on the lower levels of the GDE rather than higher level abstract factors that increase risk for young drivers. Driver educators tended to group particular GDE levels and Person-specific factors together when discussing the driving course and paid limited attention to Goals and contexts of driving. Results suggest that driver educators should provide direct instruction regarding the more abstract social and contextual factors that influence driving to potentially increase the efficacy of driver education and training as a safety countermeasure.

Driver sleepiness is a major contributor to severe crashes and fatalities on our roads. Many people continue to drive despite being aware of feeling tired. Prevention relies heavily on education campaigns as it is difficult to police driver sleepiness. Video sharing social media site YouTube is extremely popular, particularly with at risk driver demographics. Content and popularity of uploaded videos can provide insight into the quality of publicly accessible driver sleepiness information. The purpose of this research was to answer two questions; firstly, how prevalent are driver sleepiness Driver demographic and video popularity data also was recorded. The majority of videos portrayed driver sleepiness as dangerous. However, videos that had an outlook towards driver sleepiness being amusing were viewed more often and had more mean per video comments and likes. Humorous videos regardless of outlook, were most popular. Most information regarding countermeasures to deal with driver sleepiness was accurate. Worryingly, 39.8% of videos with countermeasure information contained some kind of ineffective countermeasure. The use of humour to convey messages about the dangers of driver sleepiness may be a useful approach in educational interventions.

Driver sleepiness is a leading contributor to road crashes. Sleep-related crashes are more likely to involve collision with a stationary object than non-sleep-related crashes. The mechanism underpinning this is unknown; one potential explanation may be an increased propensity for change blindness. Twenty-four drivers with at least one year of independent driving experience completed two simulated drives: one following a normal night of sleep (7-8h) and one following sleep restriction (5h). The drive consisted of 5 laps of an 11.3 km circuit, taking approximately 45 min. Each lap comprised half urban and half rural driving environments.Twenty times during the drive the visual screen was blanked for 500 ms, and when it reappeared participants were asked whether there were any changes. Twelve times a change occurred, and eight times no change occurred. Additionally, four unexpected changes occurred; for example, the language of the road signs was changed from English to German. At the end of each drive, participants were asked if anything unusual occurred. Sleep loss resulted in significantly increased subjective sleepiness and subjective workload. Driving in an urban environment did not increase alertness; subjective sleepiness ratings did not significantly differ between urban and rural environments. Change detection accuracy for both cued and unexpected changes was not significantly affected by sleep loss. In line with previous research, accuracy was greater for changes with high safety relevance and those occurring in rural environments. Collectively the findings of the study suggest that increase change blindness is probably not a contributor to sleep-related road crashes; however, future on-road research and with greater levels of sleep loss is needed to confirm findings.

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