Road Safety: Changing from stern lectures to the psychology of users
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/277046063″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
I saw an old community announcement film the other day from about 1947 which was a piece about road safety.
The message was being delivered by a man in a mortar board hat and academic gown writing things on a black board. It was the style that dominated road safety education for many years and still does now in some cases – the formal lecture to students who just had to sit and listen as to what they were doing wrong.
We have seen some significant changes in education in general and in road safety in particular. Should we move away from the fear based formal lecture and if so to what. Traffic and transport started very much in the realm of engineering.
A recent conference in Brisbane was titled International Conference on Traffic and Transport Psychology. Is this just academic dreaming or is this the right direction and does it have practical applications.
Dr Barry Watson gave the key note address at the conference. He is the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP), which is hosted by the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva, Switzerland.
Originally aired on 6 August 2016. For past programs and individual segments visit www.drivenmedia.com.au
About Author
David Brown
David Brown started his working life as a Civil Engineer but you would not want him to design a bridge you wanted to safely walk over. His passion was in traffic engineering and transport planning which is all about how we use our transport systems not how we build them. He soon became involved in commenting on issues through all avenues of the media. He is now a motoring and transport journalist. He test drives a new car each week but his ultimate measure of how good a car is relies on his 12 year old and the Hayden Brown “Will you drive me to school in that car” factor.