NOVICE LEARNER DRIVER PERCEPTIONS OF THE EFFICIENCY OF DRIVING SIMULATOR-BASED TRAINING IN QUEBEC

摘要

Novice, adolescent driver overrepresentation in road crashes is a well-documented, robust phenomenon. Driver education and training are popular but controversial interventions that have rarely demonstrated safety benefits. In aviation, virtual training in flight simulators has proven highly effective at improving pilot training efficiency. The combination of decreasing costs and increasing quality is improving the feasibility of driving simulator-based training (DSBT) for novice drivers. In 2010, a naturalistic transfer-of-training (ToT) study was initiated to examine the effectiveness of substituting hours of driving simulator-based training for hours of on-road novice driver training. Within the ToT study, one hour on the driving simulator can be substituted for one hour of on-road instruction for up to 50% of the 15 hours of on-road lessons required within the mandatory novice driver program administered by the Quebec government insurance board (SAAQ). The final results of the ToT study, due in December 2015, will address two main questions. One, compared with onroad instruction, do novice adolescents learn driving skills in a driving simulator with equal or greater efficiency? Two, does DSBT improve adolescent driver safety? This article presents questionnaire data from the first cohort of learner drivers who completed their driving programs having substituted at least one of their 15 on-road hours with one hour on the driving simulator. The questionnaire items focus on: (1) learners’ perceptions of DSBT in terms of acceptability and comparisons of efficiency with on-road training, and; (2) driving teachers’ perceptions of their learners’ driving competencies. Data from the questionnaires indicate that the experience of DSBT compared favorably with on-road lessons, that DSBT is perceived by learners to be either more or as efficient than on-road lessons for 14 out of 15 specified driving skills and that these learners earned high ratings of competency from their driving teachers.