BMJ  2006;333:199 (22 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7560.199-c

Letter

Death on the roads

Perceived threat is important in road safety

EDITOR—As Walker et al show, the more insulated and "safe" drivers are from the consequences of their behaviour the more likely they are to drive more dangerously.¹

However, sports utility vehicles (SUVs) differ in one important way from the engineering features—seat belts, airbags, and antilock breaking systems, for example—that have often provided data on risk and behaviour. Engineering features are unobtrusive to the casual observer, whereas SUVs are immediately noticeable because of their great size compared with other private cars. The size of SUVs plausibly makes them unusually threatening to other car drivers, if only because visual size at the eye is a determinant of perceived distance: a larger vehicle is inherently more likely to appear unduly close.² Hence other car drivers may be more cautious in the presence of SUVs, which in turn may exacerbate SUV drivers' tendency to risky behaviour.

In contrast, anecdotally, drivers of small cars are defensive in their behaviour because small cars are more likely to be "cut up" by other cars. Hence official efforts to promote the use of small, fuel-efficient cars may be undermined. The issue of perceived threat needs more prominence in moulding road travel generally.

University of Ulster, Newtonabbey, County Antrim BT37 0QB ah.reinhardt-rutland{at}ulster.ac.uk

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Competing interests: None declared.

References

1. Walker L, Williams J, Jamrozik K. Unsafe driving behaviour and four wheel drive vehicles: observational study. BMJ 2006;333: 71-3. (8 July.)[Abstract/Free Full Text]
2. Reinhardt-Rutland AH. Seat-belts and behavioural adaptation: the loss of looming as a negative reinforcer. Safety Sci 2001;39: 145-55.[CrossRef]

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Related Article

Unsafe driving behaviour and four wheel drive vehicles: observational study

Lesley Walker, Jonathan Williams, and Konrad Jamrozik
BMJ 2006 333: 71. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]