Need

In the United States, teenagers typically start driving at age 16 or 17.⁽¹⁾ Unfortunately, drivers in this age group have horrendous crash rates. According to National Safety Council data 16 year-old drivers had an average of 37 police-reported crashes per 100 drivers.⁽²⁾ On a per-mile-driven basis, that crash involvement rate is more than three times higher than the next worst group, 17 year-olds, and twenty times the average for all drivers.⁽³⁾

Similarly, young teen drivers are vastly overinvolved in fatal traffic crashes. 16 year-old drivers were involved in 37 fatal crashes per 100,000,000 vehicle miles of travel; 17 year-olds, 13. Yet the average for all drivers was only 2.3.⁽⁴⁾

High, if not principal, among the reasons young teens have so many traffic crashes is that they are poor risk managers. According to report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:

Increasingly, risk taking among youth appears to be a critical factor in explaining the high crash incidence. .... To make major inroads in the youth crash problem, countermeasures are needed that can deal effectively with youthful risk taking.⁽⁵⁾

The need to address this problem now is also highlighted by demographic trends (see charts, attached). After declining for many years (i.e., from 1977 through 1993), the population of 16 year-olds has begun growing rapidly, again. This so-called "Baby Boom Echo" (i.e., the children of the Baby Boom generation) means there are 17% more 16 year-old drivers in the year 2005 than there were in 1995; and this figure is estimated to grow to 23% more in 2010. Thus, if nothing is done to address risk taking and to improve safe driving performance by teen drivers in the coming years, many more teenagers will be dying on the nation's roads.

Overview of Actions Being Taken to Address Need

In March, 1995 the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety released the first comprehensive re-examination in more than 20 years of what novice drivers need to learn and do in order to be safe drivers. The Foundation's Novice Driver Education Model Curriculum Outline makes ten specific recommendations, the second of which is to "Develop interactive multi-media units for training and testing driver attention and visual detection as well as risk perception and evaluation."

Emphasis on the problem of poor risk management by young drivers can be found throughout this report. For example:

New drivers lack important skills, particularly those needed to acquire and process information. They are less able to maintain full attention and less likely to take in the information they need from the driving environment. They are not as good as experienced drivers in scanning the environment, recognizing potential hazards while they are at a safe distance, and making tough decisions quickly. They tend to underestimate the danger of certain risky situations and overestimate the danger in others.⁽⁶⁾

and

Crashes are caused by what drivers choose to do as much as by what they are able (or unable) to do. Most of novice drivers' increased risk comes from inappropriate behavior -- deliberately taking risky actions, seeking stimulation, driving at high speeds, and driving while impaired.⁽⁷⁾

and, finally

Risk acceptance is not the same as crash acceptance. Few drivers will take a risky action if they know it will result in a crash. Instead, risky choices result from poor risk perception and inability to detect hazards, often coupled with overconfidence.⁽⁸⁾

The AAA Foundation has responded to this need for better risk management training for young drivers by commissioning the development of an interactive, multimedia, computer-based risk recognition and management training program. Designed to run on a widely available IBM-compatible computer with advanced video capabilities (full-screen, full-motion video using MPEG video compression technology),⁽⁹⁾ this program will represent the state-of-the-art in interactive, individualized instruction:

The instructional content in this program will be delivered as users make their own choices and then experience the results of their actions (or lack of action). Cognitive studies have shown that learning by doing yields greater understanding than rote memorization. ....

In this program, users will never be told what to do ... In addition to exposing users to a wide range of potential driving situations, the interactive driving scenarios will contain "clues" that a bad outcome may be imminent. .... With the help of peer feedback following the users' chosen actions [given by one of four teen "hosts" featured in the program], they can come to their own understandings of how the clues and outcome are related.

In the "real world," unsafe driving choices are often rewarded by lack of negative outcomes. This program will not be equally forgiving. Unsafe choices will have immediate, observable results. ....

In addition, all scenarios will be staged and displayed as "real" full-motion video sequences (as opposed to game-like computer animations). While the program may have the structure and challenge of a game, the realistic quality of the video and the immediate peer feedback will enhance direct transfer of users' experience to the real driving environment.⁽¹⁰⁾

Like most drivers, teens learn from experience. Unfortunately, that means they learn to avoid future traffic crashes from the ones they have had in the past. This unique program allows young teen drivers to learn from experience by having crashes on the computer rather than in the family car. Indeed, this program will present more crash risks, and, thus, important learning opportunities, than most drivers will experience during years behind the wheel. Even a few costly real-world crashes prevented by experience gained from this computer program will more than pay for the $600,000 cost of the project.

Specifics of the driver-ZED Risk Management Program

Novice drivers as a group have important skill deficiencies, particularly in acquiring and processing information from the driving environment. Research has shown they are less effective in scanning the environment, detecting and recognizing potential driving risks at a safe distance, and making tough decisions quickly.

To address these skill deficiencies, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety's new driver-ZED™ risk management CD-ROM program will contain four levels of interactivity in three driving environments (Around Town, In the Country, On the Highway). Each level expands on skills honed at the previous level.

As was noted above, real-world, live-action video is the basis for this CD-ROM. More than 70 carefully staged driving scenarios were shot to produce the CD-ROM. Each scenario was shot using three synchronized digital video cameras. The first provides the driver's view of the road ahead from behind the steering wheel. The second, the driver's view of the rearview mirror. The third, the driver's view of the left side mirror. These three driving perspectives make it possible to introduce potential driving hazards in front of the vehicle, behind it, and at its left side (the size of the computer screen makes it impossible to also include an easily viewable right side mirror).

The video is displayed to the user by being overlaid on simulated (graphically depicted) windshield frame, rearview mirror, and left side mirror. There is also a simulated dash with working speedometer and turn signals.

The program is introduced to the user by four teen hosts who accompany the user throughout the program. The teen hosts initially explain the intent of the program, introduce each driving level, and comment (sometimes rather caustically!) on the user's performance . The hosts also appear periodically in various driving scenarios, e.g., by "popping up" at awkward moments as driver distracters in the form of backseat passengers appearing in the rearview mirror. The hosts are also available to offer driving tips (by using the computer's mouse to click on their faces on the program's main menu). No adults are featured in the program.

Level 1 (Scan!) scenarios consist of short, 7-10 second video clips. The user clicks the mouse to begin and the video rolls and stops automatically. The user is then asked a question about what he/she just saw. The question may involve something seen in front of the vehicle, behind it through the rearview mirror, at the left side of the vehicle or inside the vehicle (e.g., "What speed were you traveling?"). The idea is to train the user to continuously scan the entire driving environment.

Level 2 (Spot!) scenarios are designed to assess if the user is able to identify all of the risks in the current environment -- both inside and outside the vehicle. As in Level 1, a video clip is run, 10-15 seconds in length. The video then automatically stops and the user is instructed to click on the potential driving risks in the frozen video frame. Each potential hazard identified by a mouse click (e.g., a child chasing a ball toward the street) is marked by a yellow circle on the screen. Random clicking (a likelihood given the target audience) is challenged and, if it persists, punished. Once the user has identified the perceived risks, the program confirms or disputes the choices made by placing red circles on the screen on the predetermined risks that are being displayed. The video then resumes and shows what key risks developed (or didn't develop) into actual hazards (e.g., by showing the child chase the ball into the street directly in front of the user's vehicle).

Level 3 (Act!) scenarios are designed to assess if the user is able to respond correctly to risks. As in the previous levels, a video sequence rolls to stop. The user is then given two possible courses of action to choose from. Depending upon which choice is made, the user has either a safe outcome or a crash. For example, the user is following another vehicle down a highway ramp toward a merge spot. The car in front stops, as does the user's. The user looks to the left and watches oncoming traffic go by until it is clear. The video stops and the user is asked if it is safe to proceed. If the user decides that it is, the video starts and he runs into the car in front of him (whose driver has decided it isn't yet safe to merge). If the user decides not to merge yet, the subsequent video contains no crash.

Level 4 (Drive!) scenarios are designed to assess if the user is able to identify risks and then decide what action to take, and when to take it, to deal appropriately with those risks. These are three outcome scenarios. Depending upon what action the user decides to take at what point during the video clip, there is either a safe outcome, or a near miss, or a crash. Unlike the previous three levels, level 4 is under the complete control of the user, who uses the mouse to stop and start the video. When the user reaches what she perceives to be a decision point, the mouse is clicked and the user is given three courses of action from which to choose. The video starts again and rolls to conclusion. Timing of action is equally as important as the action chosen. For example, if the scenario requires a decision to slow down and begin braking to avoid an upcoming hazard, if that decision is made too late in the video sequence either a near miss or a crash occurs.

The program is scored true to its name of "Zero Errors Driving", where the best possible score is a big, fat ZERO. Given the visual and decision making challenges presented by this program, even skilled, experienced drivers will find it hard, if not impossible, to achieve a perfect score the first time around.

The program was originally created for the Foundation by Electronic Learning Facilitators, Inc. (ELF), a Bethesda, Maryland firm which specialized in the creation of multimedia products for educational markets. A working prototype of the final product was developed by ELF in 1996, in order to establish the viability of the technical aspects of the program and to produce an interim product for evaluation by focus groups of teens. ELF delivered the "beta" version of the final program to the Foundation in September, 1997. Tthe final (original) driver-ZED™ CD-ROM was accepted in December of 1997. Market release occurred in February, 1998.

It is a testament to the original design team whose care and dedication helped the original version remain basically unchanged for seven years. Seven years is beyond a lifetime in the software development world!!! While the video sequences remain unaltered and still appear fresh and relevant, all new computer code using the latest software design tools was implemented.

This has resulted in a new modularity and the addition of 20 Work Zone scenes, bringing the total number of live-action video sequences to 100. Additionally, new teen tips were created, and the entire graphical "wrapper" of ZED was revamped. With the new ZED 3.0 platform, the Foundation is able to push updates, new information, and relevant links via the internet automatically to users of ZED 3.0. via the dyanmic News Ticker that scrolls across the main menu screen.

Finally, an entirely separate module designed specifically for use by driving instructors for in-classroom training of novice drivers is available on the DVD. This "Perceptual Driving Module" developed by the American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association (ADTSEA) is a turnkey course in evaluating risks in static and dynamic driving environments. It may be accessed either via the computer or by a set-top DVD player.

driver-ZED™ was designed to enable the Foundation to produce additional versions of it for other potential markets. For example, all of the driving scenes were shot independent of any teen hosts. The teens in the scene were shot against a "blue screen" and then digitally inserted into the final video. Thus, teen hosts could be replaced with adult hosts in subsequent versions of this program.

The driver-ZED™ program was produced with funding provided entirely by the AAA community of motor clubs and insurance companies.

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1. In 1994, 41.8% of 16 year-olds held a driver's license; 61.8% of 17 year-olds; and 74.4% of 18 year-olds (see Federal Highway Administration, 1994 Highway Statistics, Table DL-20, P. III-10).

2. The annual rate has fluctuated between 32 and 40, according to data presented in the National Safety Council's Accident Facts publication for the years 1992-1997.

3. According to 1994 data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 16 year-old drivers were involved in 10,337 crashes per 100,000,000 vehicle miles of travel. The comparable figure for 17 year-olds is 3,229; for 18 year-olds, 1,897. The average for drivers of all ages is 500. (See Ezio C. Cerrelli, "Research Note: Crash Data and Rates for Age-Sex Groups of Drivers, 1994," National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, October, 1995, Table C).

4. The data presented in this paragraph were taken from the source cited in footnote 3.

5. COMSIS Corporation and the Johns Hopkins University, Understanding Youthful Risk Taking and Driving, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Report DOT HS 808 318, June, 1995, p.xiii

6. Lawrence P. Lonero, et al., Novice Driver Education Model Curriculum Outline, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, March, 1995, p. ii

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. See attached hardware specifications.

10. Electronic Learning Facilitators, "AAA FTS Novice Driver CD-ROM Revised Preliminary Design," June 6, 1996, p. 5

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