Defensive Driver Training dangerous??

[wulos]

I will disagree with you there Trev.
As you would no doubt be well aware (having been a trainer), if you follow the 4 stages of learning a new skill, there are 4 significant levels.
The way that current Australian driver ed is it leaves off at best at the third stage of learning, ie conscious competance. Once drivers have shown a basic understanding of how to drive, and the road rules they are set loose on the roads to fend for themselves / complete their driver education.
The fourth stage, is where drivers "SHOULD" be aspiring to. ie unconscious competance(The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task. The individual may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned)
This does not imply that the driver is not paying any attention to the actual driving task. With education, and experience ANY skill can become second nature, whether that be driving, hazard perception, situational awareness, or simply knowing the road rules, if you learn it well enough. Once this level is acheived then thought is STILL being given to the processes that have been learnt(just at a subconscious, rather then a conscious level)

The problem as I see it is that the current emphasis is on 2 small parts of being a safe driver. Firstly, know the road rules, on the day you sit for your test. And, secondly, show that you are capable of displaying a relatively small number of practical driving skills to an unknown level(this skill level is very much at the discretion of who ever is sitting in the co pilot seat at the time.)
There is NO real concern given to risk analysis, no training about what is/isn't a dangerous driving activity, nothing about the importance of good vision, nothing about using the safety features of the car / roads to maximise the safety of the driver, their passengers, or other road users. Nothing about what to do should things go wrong(breakdown / collisions etc). Nothing about how a car is likely to perform in an emergency, or why traveling at lightspeed at midnight during a hailstorm, on a tight twisty road is not a good idea. These subjects are up to the teacher, & the learner driver to work out themselves - if they could be bothered.
Just the road rules, and the basics of how to get the car to move/stop.

People are dieing due to lack of education. Drivers have learnt only the skillset that they have been told they need to learn, to get their licence. Giving more conscious thought to just the road rules, or the basics of moving the car, will not help nearly as much as teaching them that there's far more to driving then just those two small sets of skills.

Reading between the lines, I believe that you are saying that drivers should be spending time thinking not just about the road rules, or basic driving skills, but instead about these other skills, and NOT just the ones that are currently tested for?

[MAD]

Originally Posted by Big Trev

next time you drive pay particular attention to how much time you actutually spend thinking about the driving task, it isn't that much, suffice to say that if you thinking about thinking about it, then you are on the right path.

This is an interesting point.
Having lived in a new location for nearly 12 months now, and sharing the road with a new group of drivers, I have come to notice a few things in my driving behavior.

I'm finding that I'm sometimes torn between watching those around me (cause they're fricken crazy), and watching my speedo. This is not a bash at cameras, or the police, but depending on the stretch of road I am on changes how torn I am between these two items.
Sections that I know are common for a police car to set up, I tend to let my focus be drawn to my speedo and I end up unintentionally slowing down. If I focus on the world around me I tend to creep up a bit, up to 10km/h over sometimes, which is met with the obligatory sharp stab on the brakes to bring me back down to a speed that will keep $$ in my pocket.

I have also found myself to pay what I think is too much attention to some of these douchebags around me as i just don't know what they are going to do. I have not had a accident, nor even come close due to this, but when I realise I have watched them too long, I get a I feeling of "oh crap!, what did I miss in front of me?"


In my short 12 years of solo driving, I have been hit from behind once, I have had 2 close incidents of potential nose-tail nature, 3 instances where threshold braking, a technique that I was taught at the JB course, saved me from an impact (Each time was someone turning right across in front of me in an intersection. Two were people turning under amber conditions when there was clearly no chance I was stopping. ie: within 5m of the intersection and one was under green conditions where the driver must've had a lapse in concentration and somehow didn't see me coming), and one instance of no chance to avoid an impact when someone turned right into a side street in front of me. It is a 40 zone and I still didn't have a chance to stop so that should give you an idea of how late she left it to turn.

These days there is less need for it due to ABS, but without learning that particular skill I certainly would have been involved in more collisions. The money spent on those courses was a great investment for me, and I will always be partial to them.


FYI: Being hit from behind and hitting the car that turned in front of me in the 40 zone are the only collisions I have been involved in, and they were both within 3 months of living in the new location. I think I've adjusted to the crazy's now.


I've also come to despise curved roads in housing 'estates'. The number of times I've nearly been side swiped is countless with these idiots that get more than half of their car across the solid centre line. Most are not what I would class as 'hoons' either, most are day-dreaming mums, or people that have no idea how wide their car is and think they're going to run up the left gutter.

[wrongwaynorris]

The guy is an imbecile barely emergent from infantile imbecility , rarely ever do I agree with Mark Skaife but on this ocassion he is 100% right .

[Trevor 57]

Originally Posted by wulos

I will disagree with you there Trev.
As you would no doubt be well aware (having been a trainer), if you follow the 4 stages of learning a new skill, there are 4 significant levels.
The way that current Australian driver ed is it leaves off at best at the third stage of learning, ie conscious competance. Once drivers have shown a basic understanding of how to drive, and the road rules they are set loose on the roads to fend for themselves / complete their driver education.
The fourth stage, is where drivers "SHOULD" be aspiring to. ie unconscious competance(The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task. The individual may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned)
This does not imply that the driver is not paying any attention to the actual driving task. With education, and experience ANY skill can become second nature, whether that be driving, hazard perception, situational awareness, or simply knowing the road rules, if you learn it well enough. Once this level is acheived then thought is STILL being given to the processes that have been learnt(just at a subconscious, rather then a conscious level)

The problem as I see it is that the current emphasis is on 2 small parts of being a safe driver. Firstly, know the road rules, on the day you sit for your test. And, secondly, show that you are capable of displaying a relatively small number of practical driving skills to an unknown level(this skill level is very much at the discretion of who ever is sitting in the co pilot seat at the time.)
There is NO real concern given to risk analysis, no training about what is/isn't a dangerous driving activity, nothing about the importance of good vision, nothing about using the safety features of the car / roads to maximise the safety of the driver, their passengers, or other road users. Nothing about what to do should things go wrong(breakdown / collisions etc). Nothing about how a car is likely to perform in an emergency, or why traveling at lightspeed at midnight during a hailstorm, on a tight twisty road is not a good idea. These subjects are up to the teacher, & the learner driver to work out themselves - if they could be bothered.
Just the road rules, and the basics of how to get the car to move/stop.

People are dieing due to lack of education. Drivers have learnt only the skillset that they have been told they need to learn, to get their licence. Giving more conscious thought to just the road rules, or the basics of moving the car, will not help nearly as much as teaching them that there's far more to driving then just those two small sets of skills.

Reading between the lines, I believe that you are saying that drivers should be spending time thinking not just about the road rules, or basic driving skills, but instead about these other skills, and NOT just the ones that are currently tested for?

We are greeing on the same points here.

I see you live in NSW and it is a long time since I took a learner for their licence, but the basics of the Victorian P test is not that bad, there was a lot of work done on the latest version of the Victorian test to take out the testers personality, the Vict test requires the learner to do positive things to gain a pass mark of 80%, and as such the this requires the tester to look for positive behaviours in the learner, in the old days tester took points off for doing the wrong thing, that doesn't apply anymore.

However that does not excuse the behaviour of those that have had their licences for more than 4-5 years - so the 22 - 25 age group (and above) - they should know better., but if you look at the idiots, many (in fact most) are in the 22+ age group, so there should be no excuse.

However the quality of the drivers tells me that there is something wrong somewhere.

But we should be discussing defensive driving courses, not licence tests, yes I know that there is an argument that they should be one in the same, but they are not, so lets discuss the topic at hand.

[Silver Ghia]

I thought "defensive driving courses" by definition was to teach drivers how to avoid accidents. How can that have a negative result on the drivers ability to avoid accidents? Obviously if that is so, the course syllabus is all wrong.

I did an advanced driver training course some years ago at Calder, skid pan and swerving included (most cars were non ABS then). It was surprising how much shorter the braking distance was after applying the correct braking technique on the wet surface. Everyone should learn that, even with the vast majority of cars these days having ABS, stability control systems etc.

But the most important thing with defensive driving is to be aware of everything that is around you at each split second, because the situations, the road surface, vehicles etc, can change very rapidly in that time. That means that drivers must maintain 100% concentration even when cruising along the highway, and not turn around and talk to passengers, answer mobile phones, and generally become distracted. It is so easy to run off the edge of the sealed road and into the gravel, lose control, and then run into an oncoming car as they over correct. I bet there are quite a few new drivers who have come to grief just doing that, and AFAIK they never get taught about that situation when learning to drive.

Many years ago I found Frank Gardner's "Drive to Survive"an excellent book to learn defensive driving techniques. Somebody should update that book to current situations like at roundabouts (they werent even invented when that book was written). Yes I still have my copy and re-read it at times to amuse and also remind myself on good defensive driving techniques.

[DanielXR8]

I often wonder with the crowd who believe defensive driver training encourages hooning or is of no statistical relevance to the levels of fatalities, how they would feel if this was applied to the airline industry.

What if the Captain of a 747 you just boarded got on the PA and said he hoped things go smoothly as he has no idea what to do if something goes wrong, but they said he couldn't learn because it might encourage him to do unnecessary emergency landings or practice his stalls and other air hooning during normal flights? Best not to know the authorities said.

Somehow I don't think these proponents of not knowing is best, would be full of comfort and reassurance that their flight would be much safer because of the pilots ignorance of how to control his/her aircraft in all eventualities - but they argue that is best for you and I on public roads.

[blackf6]

Driving lessons are good, constructive criticism is good.

[Trevor 57]

Originally Posted by DanielXR8

I often wonder with the crowd who believe defensive driver training encourages hooning or is of no statistical relevance to the levels of fatalities, how they would feel if this was applied to the airline industry.

Firstly you need to to understand the differences in "defensive" driver training being offered in the market place, as obviously you don't, as a person who has been involved in the "defensive" driver training industry since 1987 I reckon I fairly experienced to commenting on the differences.

Originally Posted by DanielXR8

What if the Captain of a 747 you just boarded got on the PA and said he hoped things go smoothly as he has no idea what to do if something goes wrong, but they said he couldn't learn because it might encourage him to do unnecessary emergency landings or practice his stalls and other air hooning during normal flights? Best not to know the authorities said.

Somehow I don't think these proponents of not knowing is best, would be full of comfort and reassurance that their flight would be much safer because of the pilots ignorance of how to control his/her aircraft in all eventualities - but they argue that is best for you and I on public roads.

Totally irrelevant example, the main difference here is that pilots get hundreds of hours of full on tuition.

[jpd80]

For me, being able to read the traffic and anticipate potential movements of other vehicles in front
and to the sides allows me to position the car as to avoid a lot of potentially dangerous situations...

Sure, you won't stop others from doing stupid things on the road but as responsible drivers,
we should be able to make allowances for others and drive in a way that gives us a margin
of safety so that sudden and violent crash avoidance techniques become the last line of defense,
not the first thing we have to do....

[babyf6]

Saying you don't need defencive driving lessons is like saying you don't buy bullets for a gun and thinking it will protect you

[Trevor 57]

Originally Posted by jpd80

For me, being able to read the traffic and anticipate potential movements of other vehicles in front and to the sides allows me to position the car as to avoid a lot of potentially dangerous situations...

Sure, you won't stop others from doing stupid things on the road but as responsible drivers, we should be able to make allowances for others and drive in a way that gives us a margin of safety so that sudden and violent crash avoidance techniques become the last line of defense, not the first thing we have to do....

Spot on - well said

[aussie muscle]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

.if safety is paramount, then what is wrong with making t harder for people to get a licence?

i'll tell you why, enough people moan about doing it and complain about the cost (seems stupid when i say it like that). what i'm saying is, you're definitely right. it's changed a lot since i got my license. there was just L and P plate periods and the hardest thing was the parallel parking.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by wulos

People are dieing due to lack of education. Drivers have learnt only the skillset that they have been told they need to learn, to get their licence. Giving more conscious thought to just the road rules, or the basics of moving the car, will not help nearly as much as teaching them that there's far more to driving then just those two small sets of skills.

I guarantee you that a lot of road deaths and serious injuries are cause by drivers making a conscious decision to act in an unsafe and dangerous manner.

There is an ambo on here who can attest to numerous incidences where alcohol is a factor in road accidents,
those drivers aren't just a little bit over, they are usually way over the limit.

I have other friends who work with SES and emergency response who have told of
numerous occasions where high speed or very poor judgement was a major factor in MVAs..

It's not just about training and certification, you can do that till the cows come home and in industrial terms,
it's like deeming someone competent and then they go out and disregard everything you taught them..

[burnz]

Originally Posted by jpd80

I guarantee you that a lot of road deaths and serious injuries are cause by drivers making a conscious decision to act in an unsafe and dangerous manner.

There is an ambo on here who can attest to numerous incidences where alcohol, is a factor in road accidents,
those drivers aren't just a little bit over, they are way over the limit.

I have other friends who work with SES and emergency response who have told of
numerous occasions where high speed or very poor judgement was a major factor in MVAs..

It's not just about training and certification, you can do that till the cows come home and in industrial terms,
it's like deeming someone competent and then they go out and disregard everything you taught them..

will defensive driving change alcohol related acco's, thats for the impaired driver?

[MAD]

With some of the skills learned at a defensive driving course, they could occasionally help to avoid those idiots that disregard what they've been taught.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by burnz

will defensive driving change alcohol related acco's, thats for the impaired driver?

Meh, I think it money for old rope... not really but while people rely on others to give them a sense of responsibility
or at the very least a sense of mortality, I think a lot of drivers will continue to shift the blame from themselves to others.

A change in attitude is what's really needed...

[SB076]

Originally Posted by jpd80

For me, being able to read the traffic and anticipate potential movements of other vehicles in front
and to the sides allows me to position the car as to avoid a lot of potentially dangerous situations...

Sure, you won't stop others from doing stupid things on the road but as responsible drivers,
we should be able to make allowances for others and drive in a way that gives us a margin
of safety so that sudden and violent crash avoidance techniques become the last line of defense,
not the first thing we have to do....

The instructor who took us placed a lot of emphasis on reading traffic and also mainting a good siuation awareness. A big no no was following other cars (and particualrly trucks) too closely. As it restricts your vision and prevents you reacting accordingly (especially in the case of larger vehicles)

Also look for potential issues before they arise, kids playing with a ball, dog off a leash etc

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by SB076

The instructor who took us placed a lot of emphasis on reading traffic and also mainting a good siuation awareness. A big no no was following other cars (and particualrly trucks) too closely. As it restricts your vision and prevents you reacting accordingly (especially in the case of larger vehicles)

Also look for potential issues before they arise, kids playing with a ball, dog off a leash etc

Exactly, and a good course by the sounds of it.

I have a big issue with people who think unconscious competence = inherent safety in a vehicle,
as you post demonstrates, vigilance is key. You just don't get that with so many drivers on auto-pilot,
it's why seemingly responsible people have inexplicable lapses in judgement..

[wulos]

Originally Posted by jpd80

I guarantee you that a lot of road deaths and serious injuries are cause by drivers making a conscious decision to act in an unsafe and dangerous manner...

Undoubtably - having been there to scrape up the scraps, I am more then prepared to say that this is indeed true. There will always be an element of stupidity out there unfortunately.
If anything this actually lends even MORE weight to learning about how to avoid an accident when all other options have been expired.
Following things through.
First you are taught that basics of car control, & road rules, should keep you safe. Then if you are edumacated that little further, you know about the additional benefits of safe vehicle positioning, having great vision skills, and how they will save you from all evils.
If / when your luck runs out, & none of these things work(either through the lack of personal skills, or the STUPID element) what then???? Sorry guys, you're now dead???
Never heard of a tree falling on a moving car, driver falling asleep, & unexpectedly veering into the wrong lane? mechanical failure on other vehicles. The scenarios are endless. Not everything is predicatable, or can be compensated for in a proactive manner.

Even the military aren't that "blind" when it comes to life & death training. In training you are never told you are dead. In modern training, you are told, you've been shot(ie, sure, you're in a bad situation) now get up, & do what needs to be done, so you don't make a bad situation worse(let down your mates, or you really DO die).They call this the difference between teaching soldiers how to live through combat, rather then teaching them how to die.
Perhaps the above analogy isn't to everyones likings, but every single road user SHOULD be aware that bad things can, and do happen on the roads, & for mine they should have proven they have the skills to know what to do if/when the unavoidable occurs.

[wulos]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Exactly, and a good course by the sounds of it.

I have a big issue with people who think unconscious competence = inherent safety in a vehicle,
as you post demonstrates, vigilance is key. You just don't get that with so many drivers on auto-pilot,
it's why seemingly responsible people have inexplicable lapses in judgement..

My comments re unconscious competance, was in regards to the BASIC skills that are taught, rather then those that are NOT a part of the training regime atm.
The licence testing covers basic car control, & basic road rules. it does NOT cover off on other equally(if not more important skills) such as proper vision / safe vehicle positioning skills etc.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by wulos

My comments re unconscious competance, was in regards to the BASIC skills that are taught, rather then those that are NOT a part of the training regime atm.
The licence testing covers basic car control, & basic road rules. it does NOT cover off on other equally(if not more important skills) such as proper vision / safe vehicle positioning skills etc.

'nuff said...



BTW, great post above, agree wholeheartedly...

[Nic85]

Originally Posted by Mr.NiceGuy

mmm i remember when i did my course back in 2009 and it wasn't just driving skills you learned but alot of smaller things like special glasses the replicate what you see when drunk, high on drugs and under heavy medication. i thought it was a very beneficial thing and did it as it was a christmas gift from the parents, and its probably one of the best things i have ever recieved. it was also quite handy as the car i first bought didn't have ABS and i learned to drive with ABS.

I did one of these just last year, same sort of thing with the glasses, ABS / no ABS etc. I'm 30 years old, been driving for 14 years, had one accident in that time, and I found the course very beneficial. I was one of only 2 "older" guys there, the rest of them were kids in high school. It was a school thing for them, their school put them through the course. I could see from watching the kids that some of them got better during just the day itself.

[aussiblue]

It something that has been know for many years. As I recall it was originally discovered in the 80's after insurers and employers observed that accident rates increased rather than decreased in employees who had been sent on advanced driver courses and further analysis showed it was because the drivers became overconfident in their driving abilities and skills like being to recover after skidding etc and therefore started taking more risks. It's particularly an issue with younger drivers where the evidence is overconfidence in their own driving ability and things like being able to handle a car at high speed is already a major contributing factor to their higher than average accident rate and the last thing that is needed is to increase this level of overconfidence.

So it's all a bit of a "Catch 22" situation. Inexperience and lack of driving skills is a factor in road accidents but training to address this may make some drivers dangerously overconfident. So perhaps training that highlights the risks of driving while improving basic think ahead skills and risk avoidance driving is what is needed.

[aussiblue]

In other words, what these analysts suggest is that the level of driving skill may play
a lesser role in one's future accident record than risk acceptance due to risk
underestimation resulting from overconfidence due to advanced training

From Risk: Perception, Acceptance and Homeostasis
Sébastien Simonet1,*, Gerald J.S. Wilde

The international literature provides little support for the hypothesis that formal driver instruction is an effective safety measure. It is argued that such an outcome is not entirely unexpected given that traditional programs fail to address adequately the age and experience related factors that render young drivers at increased risk of collision

Article
The safety value of driver education an training
D R Mayhew1, H M Simpson1
+ Author Affiliations

1Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Correspondence to:
 Dr D R Mayhew, Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF), Suite 200, 171 Nepean Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2P OB4;
 danm@trafficinjuryresearch.com
Accepted 21 June 2002
http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/cont...pl_2/ii3.short

etc

[aussiblue]

Some advantages for us oldies perhaps:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15026102

Am J Prev Med. 2004 Apr;26(3):222-9.
Impact of an educational program on the safety of high-risk, visually impaired, older drivers.
Owsley C, McGwin G Jr, Phillips JM, McNeal SF, Stalvey BT.
SourceDepartment of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294-0009, USA. owsley@uab.edu

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Older drivers (licensed drivers aged 60 years and older) have among the highest rates of motor vehicle collision involvement per mile driven of all age groups. Educational programs that promote safe driving strategies among seniors are a popular approach for addressing this problem, but their safety benefit has yet to be demonstrated. The objective of this study was to determine whether an individualized educational program that promoted strategies to enhance driver safety reduces the crash rate of high-risk older drivers. DESIGN/ SETTING: Randomized, controlled, single-masked intervention evaluation at an ophthalmology clinic.

PARTICIPANTS: A total of 403 older drivers with visual acuity deficit or slowed visual processing speed or both who were crash-involved in the previous year, drove at least 5 days or 100 miles per week or both, and were at least 60 years old.

INTERVENTION: Patients were randomly assigned to usual care (comprehensive eye examination) or usual care plus an individually tailored and administered educational intervention promoting safe-driving strategies.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Police-reported vehicle collision rate, expressed both in terms of person-years of follow-up and person-miles of travel for 2 years postintervention.

RESULTS: The intervention group did not differ significantly from the usual care only group in crash rate per 100 person-years of driving (relative risk [RR], 1.08; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.71-1.64) and per 1 million person-miles of travel (RR, 1.40; 95% CI, 0.92-2.12). The intervention group reported more avoidance of challenging driving maneuvers and self-regulatory behaviors during follow-up than did the usual care only group (p<0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS: An educational intervention that promoted safe-driving strategies among visually impaired, high-risk older drivers did not enhance driver safety, although it was associated with increased self-regulation and avoidance of challenging driving situations and decreased driving exposure by self-report.

[aussiblue]

Post-licence driver education for the prevention of road traffic crashes.
Ker K, Roberts I, Collier T, Renton F, Bunn F.
SourcePublic Health Intervention Research Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 49-51 Bedford Square, London, UK, WC1B 3DP.

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Worldwide, each year over a million people are killed and some ten million people are permanently disabled in road traffic crashes. Post-licence driver education is used by many as a strategy to reduce traffic crashes. However, the effectiveness of post-licence driver education has yet to be ascertained.

OBJECTIVES: To quantify the effectiveness of post-licence driver education in reducing road traffic crashes.

SEARCH STRATEGY: We searched the following electronic databases: the Cochrane Injuries Group's Specialised Register, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, EMBASE, TRANSPORT (NTIS, TRIS, TRANSDOC, IRRD), Road Res (ARRB), ATRI, National Research Register, PsycInfo, ERIC, SPECTR, Zetoc, SIGLE, Science (and Social Science) Citation Index. We searched the Internet, checked reference lists of relevant papers and contacted appropriate organisations. The search was not restricted by language or publication status.

SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised controlled trials comparing post-licence driver education versus no education, or one form of post-licence driver education versus another.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two reviewers independently screened search results, extracted data and assessed methodological trial quality.

MAIN RESULTS: We found 24 trials of driver education, 23 conducted in the USA and one in Sweden. Twenty trials studied remedial driver education. The methodological quality of the trials was poor and three reported data unsuitable for meta-analysis. Nineteen trials reported traffic offences: pooled relative risk (RR) = 0.96, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) = 0.94, 0.98); trial heterogeneity was significant (p=<0.00001). Fifteen trials reported traffic crashes: pooled RR = 0.98 (95% CI 0.96, 1.01), trial heterogeneity was not significant (p=0.75). Four trials reported injury crashes: pooled RR = 1.12 (95% CI 0.88, 1.41), trial heterogeneity was significant (p=<0.00001). No one form of education (correspondence, group or individual) was found to be substantially more effective than another, nor was a significant difference found between advanced driver education and remedial driver education. Funnel plots indicated the presence of publication bias affecting the traffic offence and crash outcomes.

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review provides no evidence that post-licence driver education is effective in preventing road traffic injuries or crashes. Although the results are compatible with a small reduction in the occurrence of traffic offences, this may be due to selection biases or bias in the included trials. Because of the large number of participants included in the meta-analysis (close to 300,000 for some outcomes) we can exclude, with reasonable precision, the possibility of even modest benefits

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12917984

[aussiblue]

Does increased confidence among novice drivers imply a decrease in safety? The effects of skid training on slippery road accidents.
Katila A, Keskinen E, Hatakka M, Laapotti S.
SourceDepartment of Psychology, University of Turku, Turku, FIN 20014, Finland. ari.katila@utu.fi

Abstract
Finnish driver training was renewed in 1990 with the inclusion of a compulsory skid training course in the curriculum. The study evaluated the renewal's effect on accidents in slippery road conditions. A questionnaire was sent by mail to 41000 novice drivers who were randomly selected from the official register of driving licences. It included questions on driving exposure and the accidents the drivers had been involved in during 6-18 months following licensing. The rate of return was 74.7%. Half of the drivers had received their licence in 1989 and had, therefore, not received any skid training. The other half had received their licence in 1990 after the introduction of the skid training course. The results showed no effects of the renewal on slippery road accidents for either male or female drivers. Another questionnaire was sent to 1300 old and new curriculum drivers immediately after licensing and a second time 1/2-1 year later, both with questions about skills, worries and perceived risks regarding driving in slippery conditions. The new curriculum drivers showed higher confidence in their skills and they were less afraid to drive in slippery conditions than the old curriculum drivers. This increase in confidence as a result of skid training is discussed. It is argued that high confidence in one's personal skills does not necessarily imply negative safety. The crucial factor is how these skills are used, and for what purpose

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15094406

[aussiblue]

Accid **** Prev. 1985 Dec;17(6):449-60.
A review of the literature evaluating the Defensive Driving Course.
Lund AK, Williams AF.
Abstract
The Defensive Driving Course (DDC), like other post-licensure driver training programs, is intended to reduce the rate of motor vehicle crashes among those who take the course. A review of the literature revealed 14 controlled studies of the effects of DDC. About a third of these studies provided methodologically strong tests of DDC, but the remainder had design flaws that made their findings questionable or inadequate as tests of DDC. Only among the flawed tests were there large, positive effects of DDC. In the methodologically strong tests, DDC had no consistent effect on crashes but did decrease the frequency of traffic violations by about 10%. The failure of violation reductions to be translated into crash reductions may indicate that the violation reduction is an artifact of traffic record procedures or that the changes in driver behavior, if real, were insufficient to modify individual crash likelihoods. In either event, the best available evidence does not support the hypothesis that DDC decreases the likelihood of motor vehicle crashes.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3913440

[mik]

anything that gives you more car handling skills must be a good thing, but skill reading the road conditions and understanding the possible consequences of a risky move is hard to teach young folk, unfortunately this is something that comes with experience.

[jason71]

I think the key is learning motor skills from a young age.

My boy age seven has been riding motorbikes since the age four, and my four year old girl has just started riding.

Little do they know it, they are learning basic skills that will stick with them for life.
Such as brake and throttle control, under and over steer, the limitations of a vehicle and themselves, whilst having fun in a controlled environment.

Now on the flip side

You teach a young hot blooded sixteen year old how drive with no prier experience with vehicle dynamics, then let them loose.
What is the first thing most will do?
They are going to push it to the limit with no regards to the limitations to both the vehicle or themselves in an uncontrolled environment, to see what they can do.

I know I and most of my mates did. We had a few crashes and fortunately none of us got injured.