Training young drivers: The effect of verbal and event-based feedback on drivers' following behaviour and confidence

Young drivers have been known to perform less than ideally in a number of traffic contexts. Behaviour feedback is critical for the development of safe driving skills. Forty-two young drivers aged 18 to 20 were randomly assigned to three training conditions: a verbal and event-based feedback condition, an event-based feedback condition, or a control condition, and exposed to vehicle following situations in the simulator. The verbal and event-based feedback group showed a significant increase in headway time by the end of training. However, the effect was not maintained in the transfer drive, which occurred one week later. Between-subjects effect sizes were small due to small sample sizes. Overall driver confidence did not appear to be affected by the training. Results suggest that the combination of verbal and event-based feedback modulates behaviour over short time periods, but may not be sufficient for the adoption of safe behaviours over longer time periods.