The Use Of Verbal Commentary In Hazard Perception Training For Older Drivers

Has consistently suggested that older drivers have higher crash rates per mile travelled. One aspect of driving skills that has been found to correlate with accident involvement is hazard perception ability, which involves anticipating potential hazards on roads. Previous studies on young drivers have demonstrated that hazard perception ability could be trained and improved using a verbal commentary. Therefore, the current study aimed to examine the effectiveness of a verbal commentary in improving older drivers’ hazard perception ability. Participants were randomly assigned to either a training or control group. Trained participants watched a video that was accompanied by an expert’s commentary; while, control participants watched the same video with the verbal commentary edited out. Participants in both groups completed a hazard perception test before and after watching the training or control video. In addition to that, all participants completed an assessment battery measuring cognitive and visual functioning, which have been reported to decline in older adults. In line with the fi rst hypothesis, the trained group performed better than the control group on the hazard perception test after training. This indicated that the hazard perception training using a verbal commentary was effective in older drivers. Partially supporting the second hypothesis, it was found that nearly all cognitive measures were correlated with the pre-training hazard perception response time but no correlation was found for the visual measures. Contrary to the third hypothesis, there was no interaction found between anxiety level and group (trained vs. control) on the post-training hazard perception response time. Thus, it indicated that highly anxious participants did not benefi t more or less from the training. Strengths
and limitations of the study were discussed in relation to each fi nding, as well as the implication of training effect to real driving.