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H2020Individual fellowship2017–2019

Speedingrisk · Applying risk communication strategies to reduce speeding-related risks

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2017-09-01 → 2019-08-31
EU contribution
€183,455
Participants
1
Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-ST

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Results in brief

Applying risk communication strategies to reduce speeding-related risks

Summary description of the project objectives The equivalent of a medium-sized town is killed yearly in the EU, costing society approximately 130 billion Euro. One crucial goal for traffic safety is to reduce speeding on our roads as speed affects both the likelihood and severity of accidents. Even with ‘driverless’ intelligent car systems, in which the, drivers still input their speeding intentions. Hence, safety in traditional and intelligent car systems is improved by dashboard tools follow psychological principles of human-factor engineering and fit with drivers’ intuitive judgments. Dr Eriksson used her expertise in driver behavior and the psychology of human factors engineering to better understand and improve drivers’ misjudgments of speeding risks, so as to inform dashboard and communication tools that promote safer driving. The overall goal of the project was an improved understanding of drivers’ perceptions of risks and benefits with speeding in the UK and Sweden and design interventions to address misunderstandings of risks and benefits. To achieve this goal, the Dr Eriksson and her collaborators at Leeds University Business School pursued three objectives: Objective 1: Identify the processes underlying drivers’ (mis)understandings of the risks and benefits of speeding Objective 2: Examine the prevalence of misunderstandings and their relationship to inclinations to speed Objective 3: Designing and testing tools to address driver misunderstandings and intentions to speed

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

In the EU, road accidents are in the top three causes of deaths and hospitalizations . WHO finds it crucial to discourage speeding, because it is a main cause of road accidents. The Fellow’s research in the psychology of human factors engineering shows that people underestimate the risks of accidents from speeding and overestimate how much time is saved through speeding. Public campaigns have typically not yet sought to correct these misunderstandings but rather have focused on emotional fear-appeals to reduce speeding. The Supervisor’s work on risk communication provides a systematic method for correcting such decision-relevant beliefs, which has been successfully applied to a variety of contexts, but not to the design of dashboard tools. We take the novel approach of combining the Fellow’s and Supervisor’s fields to design dashboard tools and public campaigns that discourage intentions to speed by correcting drivers’ misunderstandings of the risks and benefits of speeding. This project will benefit from Fellow's experience in leading projects on informing driver perceptions with dashboard tools, and her ongoing partnerships with the car industry and governmental agencies. The project will lead to knowledge transfer between the Fellow’s Swedish Transportation Institute, partners at Volvo Cars and government agencies as well as the Supervisor’s Centre for Decision Research and the associated Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds (UK). The project will boost the Fellow’s academic career progression, as she aims to become a world-leading expert in evidence-based interventions that improve driver safety and save drivers’ lives.

Original text from CORDIS.

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Data: CORDIS, © European Union