Page 42 - OHS, October 2024

T R A N S P O R T A T I O N S A F E T Y
The Real Culprits Behind Road Accidents: Understanding and
Changing Driver Attitudes
Beyond skills and knowledge: how attitudes and risk tolerance infl uence driving safety.
BY SPENCER MCDONALD
and have run across very few truly bad drivers. Th is raises the
I have conducted thousands of driving evaluations over 25 years
question: why do we continue to have so many accidents on our
roads and perhaps within your organization?
It can’t be just a few bad drivers causing all the problems, so it
must be something else. Could it be that all of us “good drivers”
are the problem?
The Role of Attitudes in Driving Behavior
In fact, even good drivers sometimes take chances and make mis-
takes in judgment that can result in a crash.
So, what could cause a good driver to become involved in an at-
fault accident or property damage incident? To answer this ques-
tion, it’s important to remember that good driving is a combina-
tion of skills, knowledge, and attitudes.
We need skills to safely and competently operate a motor vehi-
cle, knowledge of the rules and regulations, and a positive attitude.
For decades, driver safety programs have identifi ed these elements
as the key to accident reduction and done a good job of refreshing
knowledge in a classroom or online course and polishing skills with
behind-the-wheel training. Having a good attitude is also stressed.
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But what is a good attitude? What are attitudes in the fi rst place?
We know a bad attitude when we see one, but to successfully
make meaningful changes to driver behavior, we need to help driv-
ers understand, recognize, and change their attitudes.
Understanding Risk Tolerance
Attitudes are a mixture of belief systems and values that determine
how we experience the world and how we respond to things in our
lives, like driving. It is our attitude that determines how we will use
our skills and knowledge when confronted with a driving challenge.
Preconceived notions about other drivers based on age, gender,
or ethnicity, and expectations about their behavior can create at-
titudes of intolerance and frustration where cooperation and pa-
tience may yield more positive results.
Failure to accept our powerlessness in situations where traffi c
is slow or tied up can encourage aggressive driving behavior in an
attempt to get there quicker.
Our attitudes are the prime determinant of how much risk we
take on the road: our risk tolerance.
Risk tolerance is the amount of risk that we normally accept
when performing a risky task like driving. What is crucial to un-
42 Occupational Health & Safety | OCTOBER 2024 www.ohsonline.com