Understanding Driver Behavior
We all tend to take driving for granted, but every time you get behind the wheel, you make choices in how you drive,
from how fast you go to the way you steer, pause for others and so on, that have an impact on your car and those
around you. Together, the choices you make on the road are known as driver behavior, and understand more about
driver behavior is key to being safer behind the wheel.
The Most Common Dangerous Driving Behavior We See
While thee are a number of different practices that we might call dangerous driving behavior, the most common is
being distracted while driving. Whether that is using a phone while driving, eating, putting on makeup or, and this
is real, reading a book, if you are doing something that takes you attention away from the task of driving, you are
guilty of driving distracted. If we are honest, most of us have probably done one of those things at least once,
although we hope its not reading a book!
To see why it is dangerous, think about it this way. If you are driving at 55mph, in 5 seconds you will travel the
length of a football pitch. Glancing at a text can take longer than that, and you are not looking where you are
going for that entire distance. So, it is easy to see why it is so dangerous to be distracted when driving, it is a
significant threat to your safety, and that of everyone around you too.
The Importance of Driver Management
Because poor driver behavior can have such an impact on road and vehicle safety, driver management is
become more
widely adopted for both research and professional driving activities. Using telematics devices such as the AutoPi
device , which simply plugs into the vehicle’s OBD-II port , you can easily collect a wide range of
data about the vehicle’s use, including speed, acceleration, braking severity and so on. This can be used to
understand driver behavior, assessing aggressive and dangerous tendencies as the vehicle is driven.
This is especially important to companies that operate fleets, provide car insurance and so on, and they are
increasingly investing in driver management solutions so that their vehicles are being driven in a safe, low risk
manner. With reports provided to drivers and fleet
managers in real time, issues are addressed quickly, with
guidance provided to lower risks and avoid problems.
For fleet management , drivers that fail to heed
advice may be asked to attend additional training, while insurers
can adjust insurance premiums based on driver behavior. In addition, some universities are using telematics devices
within their research departments so that they can study road safety and how driver behavior influences it. Vehicle
data is collected in real-time, allowing researchers to observe how changing driver behavior impacts road
users and the best practices to maintain the safest environment for all.
Conclusion
There is a direct correlation between better driver behavior and improved road safety, so from us as individual
drivers to professional transport fleets, it is in all our interests that driver behavior is better understood and
managed.
Safe driving doesn’t just happen, we must all work at it, take responsibility and make the choice to amend our own
driver behavior and choose to take the safer approach when we get behind the wheel.
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