How does turning your head away from the primary driving position to look at a mobile or music player  display differ from doing the same when using an "In-console" sat nav, or even an after market one installed off the eye-line ?

 

Most of the current generation of new cars being sold now have multimedia + sat nav installed in centre line consols . . . off the driving position eye-line.

 

So the current Type Approval process for vehicles is complicit  in creating a situation where these sort of driver lapses are "built-in" to normal driving operations.

 

The Department of Transport's policy is not "Joined-up".

 

After having undertaken a recent speed awareness course ( One Mph over in a thirty)  I can  understand how this situation arises.

 

For instance, the official policy on driver speed awareness relies entirely on the availability of  roadside signage, which lets face, isn't available on all sections of road and if it is it might be obscured by foilage or not properly illuminated. And the DOT's approach to this driver conundrum i.e. missing signage, is to require the driver to deploy a mental inferential reasoning process by asking  a series of questions i.e. Am I in a built-up area ? Are there street lamps ? Are they 100m apart, Is the road single carriageway, are there any contra-indications from other road-side signage, then i'm in a 30 Mph zone.

 

This mental process in itself,  consumes one channel of the documented six available in human "Head" tasks. And by the time you've completed it, your're in the back of the 44 - tonner in-front.

 

Not good advice. But its the only advice that can be given in the circumstances.

 

I would have thought that modern traffic conditions demand "In-cab" head-up display for everything i.e. speed limits/restrictions, hazards ahead, sat nav data, such as is being made available in higher end marques now. Is DOT pushing manufacturers to extend this system, as a matter of priority, to all vehicles, ASAP ?Probably not.

 

Why haven't the Transport Industry been compelled to include all this technology, especially forward hazard warning, into commercial and PCV cabs ?

 

Why isn't there advice in the Highway code to leave adequate space between vehiciles that come to rest in traffic queues on motorways - to minimise the telescoping effect in the event of a heavy rear-ending on the tail-end of a queue ?

 

Be advised, that on my recent course, we were told that there will shortly be a big -push on speeding in 20 Mph zones, worth bearing in mind when you remember that 25 Mph will then be in book-throwing territory.

 

N

Edited 31 October, 20169 yr by Clunkclick

I'm of the opinion there is also a flaw in the "Psychological" approach to speeding and road hazard indication.

 

Not only is it not "In-cab" but also, the way the signage is done in the UK doesn't lead to associations with other "human" factors. 

 

For example in rural France the off-motorway speed limits are associated with communities. If you're approaching a village on a fast 80kmh country road, the first sign you see on approaching a village is the village name same (In concrete, red surround). You then know immediately to slow down to 35Kmh until on exiting the village you see the same type of sign with two red lines through it. The speed to be adopted is thereby associated with a simple human factors requirement - no other mental reasoning is necessary.

 

Our signage is just a disembodied number inside a symbol i.e. unassociated with "Human" factors and therefore more easily ignored/discounted ?

 

Perhaps a few pictograms,  as background to  numbers in the foreground, on the UK signage would improve driver's perception on the requirement to comply ?

 

Nick

Not sure how you managed to make speeding relevant to using a hand held mobile phone...

Sorry about that, its slightly off topic, but it makes the common point, particularly in relation to driver distraction, that a lot of this government policy formulation is done reactively to individual cases rather than strategically, whether its driving with due care and attention or speeding.

 

Sorry, if that was too obscure for you.

 

 

N

Edited 31 October, 20169 yr by Clunkclick