Rural roads constitute the most dangerous road category with regard to the number of fatal accidents. In order to increase traffic safety on rural roads it is necessary to take into account not only their inherent properties but also their effect on behaviour. Gert Weller develops a psychological model for driving on rural roads which is validated in three empirical steps: laboratory, simulator and driving experiments. His results provide insight into the possibilities of how driving behaviour on rural roads can be influenced and give practical guidance for the enhancement of rural road safety. The book is written for psychologists in the fields of traffic psychology and human factors research, traffic engineers, road planners as well as for political decision makers in traffic planning departments.

Road accidents are the major cause of death and injury among young people in the developing world, and the field of psychology can offer great insights into the many factors that are at play when we get behind the wheels of our cars. Based on data collected around the world on drivers of all age groups, Graham Hole provides an up to date picture of the realities of driving, including visual perception issues, cell phone distractions, fatigue, drugs, and the effects of aging. These insights can help explain why we crash, as well as how we achieve the amazing feat of not crashing more often than we do. In this jargon-free and very accessible book, Hole applies psychological methods and insights to this every-day experience with two audiences in mind. First, he speaks to accident investigators, who frequently rely on well-developed understandings of engineering and forensics and less insight into the psychology of the driver. Second, of course, this book will be of value to anyone interested in the application of cognitive psychology to real-world behaviors, and to anyone who drives.

This authoritative book presents conclusions of recent studies on road rage, summarizes legislative and police initiatives, and redefines driver education for all drivers.

Just as our transport systems become more and more important to our economic and social well-being, so they become more and more crowded and more at risk from congestion, disruption, and collapse. Technology and engineering can provide part of the solution, but the complete solution will need to take account of the behaviour of the users of the transport networks. The role of psychologists in this is to understand how people make decisions about the alternative modes of transport and about the alternative routes to their destinations, to understand how novice and other vulnerable users can develop safe and effective behaviours, how competent users can operate within the transport system optimally and within their perceptual and cognitive limitations. The contributions to this volume address these issues of how the use of our transport systems can be improved by taking into account knowledge of the behaviour of the people who use the systems. Topics discussed include driver training and licensing, driver impairment, road user attitudes and behaviour, enforcement and behaviour change, driver support systems, and the psychology of mobility and transport mode choice. This work will be of value not only to psychologists but to all transport professionals interested in the application of psychology to traffic.

Driving is a fact of life. We are all spending more and more time on the road, and traffic is an issue we face everyday. This book will make you think about it in a whole new light. We have always had a passion for cars and driving. Now Traffic offers us an exceptionally rich understanding of that passion. Vanderbilt explains why traffic jams form, outlines the unintended consequences of our attempts to engineer safety and even identifies the most common mistakes drivers make in parking lots. Based on exhaustive research and interviews with driving experts and traffic officials around the globe, Traffic gets under the hood of the quotidian activity of driving to uncover the surprisingly complex web of physical, psychological and technical factors that explain how traffic works.

This comprehensive 2nd edition covers the key issues that relate human behavior to traffic safety. In particular it covers the increasing roles that pedestrians and cyclists have in the traffic system; the role of infotainment in driver distraction; and the increasing role of driver assistance systems in changing the driver-vehicle interaction.

Human error is involved in more than 90 percent of traffic accidents, and of those accidents, most are associated with visual distractions, or looking-but-failing-to-see errors. Human Factors of Visual and Cognitive Performance in Driving gathers knowledge from a human factors psychology standpoint and provides deeper insight into traffic -user beh