Officially, the number of people we are told that die every year on South African roads is around 16 000. This number, according to some sources, is a bit different, it’s closer to 25 000. Yet, even if we work on 16 000, this is the equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every 10 days – if that happened do you think that they would take it seriously?
The CEO of MasterDrive, Eugene Herbert, emphasised the impact road safety can have on the insurance industry. The absence of something being done about that means that organisations including insurers, need to take the lead in making a difference. “Road safety makes good business sense. Normally, driver training reduces crashes by 15%. How does an organisation reduce their risk?”
There are four aspects of risk: risk perception, homeostasis, ignorance and arrogance. “Risk perception is your subjective view of risk. It forms the way one does certain things. For example, a driver choosing to travel close to the vehicle ahead because they drive a vehicle equipped with ABS.
“Risk homeostasis is what we are prepared to exchange to engage in risky behavior for its perceived benefits. With driving while distracted (DWD), drivers know it’s illegal, unsafe and contributes toward approximately 25% of crashes but many people still talk on the phone while driving? You know likelihood of a crash is significantly greater but if you were running late for a critical appointment but your Bluetooth is not working would you still use the phone – exchanging the risk for the benefits.
Then there is risk ignorance. “An example is a company that investigated why one driver was repeatedly experiencing crashes. They discovered it was not because he was a bad driver but because he had vision impairment. Thus, the organisation still engaged in the activity because they were unaware of the consequences.
“Risk arrogance is the difference. We agree DWD is dangerous but people still do it. This is where we are grossly arrogant because it ‘doesn’t apply to me, it applies to everyone else.’ We don’t want to admit that we were otherwise occupied doing something other than driving.”
Consequently, reducing risk relies on understanding driver behavior. “An international system called ‘Safe System’ acknowledges that it’s not just the driver that is responsible for the problems on the road and, rather, it is multifaceted.
“A pothole is related to road engineering but if you were driving so close to the car in front of you that you didn’t see it, it is no longer just the engineering. If you were driving the right distance, you could have reacted correctly. That’s the Safe System.”
Yet, changing driver behaviour depends on five things: behaviour, attitude, awareness, motivation and skill. “Telling someone to change their behaviour is not enough, you need to give drivers the motivation to change. MasterDrive motivates drivers to change with an emergency braking simulation. An emergency stop is performed at 60km/h and then 120km/h.
“Participants indicate where they think the vehicle will stop. They usually base their guess on the 120km/h test by doubling the distance it took to stop while driving 60km/h. Yet, due to exponential forces it is much further. Once they experience this, then there is a motivation to change behaviour.”
Thus, change to driver behaviour requires insurers to both understand different approaches to risk and then creating awareness of consequences, to motivates change.
