The Driver

Introduction

The aim of Module 2 is to stimulate thinking about the profile of a safe, cooperative and responsible driver. To this end, it
seeks to raise the learners awareness of how various factors (values, norms, parents, friends, the media, etc.) can
influence peoples ideas of driving and, potentially, their behaviour behind the wheel.

It is estimated that driver behaviour is a factor in 80% of accidents. Most of these accidents could be avoided if more people
adopted responsible behaviour.

Before establishing their profile as a prospective driver, it is important for learners to ask themselves certain questions.
What guides their approach to learning how to drive? What is their attitude toward driving? What are their values and how
are they likely to influence the way they drive a passenger vehicle? How can norms, as models or rules, affect their
behaviour while driving? Lastly, what about the influence of the people around you (parents, friends) and the media? How
can they affect their behaviour as a prospective driver?

Everyone has their own answers to these questions, but asking them can enable them to know yourself better and help you
to define their profile as a future driver.
 The Driver

Influence of Values

What is a value?

A value can be defined as a principle that determines the ways of being and acting that are typical of a person or a
community. It is a moral guideline that gives individuals the means to judge their actions and build a personal ethical
system. Values are subjective and they vary from one culture to the next. They can touch on several spheres: political,
religious, moral, ethical, esthetic, social, etc.

Examples of values:

Family, work, equality, freedom, respect, money, power, perseverance, mutual help, commitment, trust, honesty,
responsibility.

How do values influence driving?

People who advocate responsibility may adapt their driving to help protect the environment. Ecological and economical
driving, and using a hybrid or very low fuel consumption vehicle is important to them. They may also choose not to drive
and may use alternative transportation (public transit, carpooling, bicycling, etc.). They feel responsible and therefore
assume their responsibilities for protecting the environment.

People may also feel responsible with regard to impaired driving. As a result, they do not drive after consuming alcoholic
beverages. They also see that their friends do not take the wheel after consuming alcohol or using drugs.

Freedom is a feeling that can be produced by driving. People for whom freedom is an important value may, beyond feeling
free to get around, feel free and invulnerable inside their car. This false sense of freedom and safety can lead to
overconfidence and recklessness on the road. The result is driving that endangers the driver and others as well.

People for whom respect is an important value can reproduce behaviours while driving that reinforce respect. They are
patient and tolerant toward the other road users, and avoid behaviours that can lead them to be aggressive. Obeying laws
and regulations is also important to them. While driving, they make certain to respect speed limits, traffic lights, etc.
 The Driver

Influence of Norms

What is a norm?

A norm is something that is taken as a model or rule. With regard to driving, it is useful to make a distinction between legal
norms and social norms.

Legal norms are laws and regulations. Failure to comply with legal norms can lead to penalties. Being caught speeding, for
instance, can mean a driver has to pay a fineoften a very high oneand will have demerit points entered in their driving
record.

Social norms specifies what an individual may or may not do. They reflect the values of a society, which is why they can
vary from one group to the nextyoung people, seniors, motorcyclists, etc. Individuals, being subject to all kinds of
influences, including legal and social norms, eventually construct their own norms.

Road user behaviour does not always correspond to prescribed legal norms. For instance, there is a legal norm concerning
speed on highways that does not reflect the social norm. Though everyone knows the maximum speed allowed is
100 km/h, many drivers consider it normal to exceed that legal limit. As a result, speeding, with all the attendant risks, is
increasingly trivialized.
 The Driver

Influence of Emotions

Emotions can have a significant impact on driving, because they limit us in ways we do not always suspect. They can
compromise our ability to pay attention, as well as our judgment and reaction time, among other things.

Emotions, especially unpleasant ones, can alter the concentration needed to drive. For instance, if you are sad, anxious or
angry, your thoughts can become confused. When that happens, you run the risk of not paying proper attention to what is
going on around you on the road and thus endangering the safety of yourself and others. In addition to reducing your
concentration, such feelings can cause frustration and make you impatient, and even aggressive, on the road. That can
lead to situations of conflict, which can have very serious consequences.
 The Driver

Influence of Parents

According to recent research in road safety, the family environment is still the primary influence on accident risk among
young people aged 15 to 25. The influence of the family is exercised in three ways:

Through socialization, that is, the transmission of values like respect for the rules or respect for others.

Through imitation, that is, the childs reproduction of the parents attitudes and behaviours. Long before they are able to
drive, children, as passengers, are in a position to observe and internalize what their parents do at the wheel. They notice
their parents driving style, attitudes and reactions in a variety of situations, such as when parents grow impatient with a
driver they feel is not going fast enough, when they never signals to let other road users know their intentions, or when they
never stop completely at a stop sign. Children absorb all this and are liable to reproduce it.

Through control, that is, the way the parents handle the period when their children are at the greatest risk of accidents,
which coincides with their first time as a passenger in friends cars, first experience as a learning driver with an
accompanying rider, and first times alone at the wheel of the family car.

One may wonder whether the significance of the parents influence on their childrens driving behaviour can be verified. It
can, by comparing the parents driving records (offences and accidents) with their childrens driving records.

North American studies have indeed shown that young peoples accidents and offenses in the first years of driving are
related to their parents driving style and that, as a result, parents who commit more offences and have more accidents
have children who likewise commit more offences and have more accidents.

However, anyone can decide at any time to become a careful driver and avoid losing their licence, being injured in an
accident and endangering the lives of others.
 The Driver

Influence of Friends

Pressure from peers (friends) can influence a drivers behaviour behind the wheel. A number of studies have shown a
relationship between the presence of passengers the same age as the driver and an increase in accident risk. It has also
been shown that young drivers, men and women alike, drive faster and follow other vehicles more closely when driving with
passengers in their age group.

It can be hard to resist peer pressure for young people. The fear of rejection and the need to be accepted and appreciated
can make you adopt behaviours that go against your values or beliefs.

But peer pressure can also be positive, such as when a friend asks someone not to drive because they have been drinking
or asks them to slow down because they are driving too fast.
 The Driver

Influence of Media

Television, films, the Internet, video games and music are popular forms of media that are present in our daily lives. In an
age in which young people grow up in front of computers and TV sets, it is more important than ever that they develop
understanding and critical thinking in order to make enlightened, responsible decisions regarding these media.

A variety of sources indicate that automobile advertising extolling the virtues of speed, freedom or engine power is likely to
influence the behaviour of the youngest drivers, who are more susceptible to advertising and less critical of it.

However, others feel that a direct link cannot be drawn between exposure to such advertising and possible changes in
behaviour. Nor does any federal or provincial legislation currently prohibit automobile advertising that plays up engine
power, rapid acceleration, speed, etc.

Therefore, you have to be discerning and not try to duplicate TV scenes when you get behind the wheel. Such scenes
generally show a driver speeding down a road with no one else in sight. The reality on the road network is quite different,
with hundreds of vehicles and users milling around all the time.
 The Driver

Additional Reading

p. 3 to
The Drivers Licence
26

: Driving a Passenger Vehicle

: Drivers Handbook
 The Driver

Conclusion

Part of being a safe, cooperative and responsible driver is knowing yourself well and being aware of the various things that
can influence you. Before learners even obtain their drivers licence, their attitude toward driving may already be coloured
by ingrained values, the legacy of parents, media images and the influence of friends. For some people, the effect on their
behaviour as drivers will be positive; for others, it will be negative.

Being aware of the influences, means learners are already on their way to meeting the profile of a safe, cooperative and
responsible driver, one who plans safe trips, decides not to drive while impaired, respects the rules of the Highway Safety
Code, of road signs and traffic signals, is courteous, and shares the road with the other users, especially vulnerable users.