Scientific Study of Driving Habits

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 14 (Supplement)

Scientific Study of Driving Habits

Observation of driving habits on the highways points to the conclusion that many roads are too narrow to permit of fast travelling cars passing each other with an ample margin of safety. Unfortunately, accidents are not infrequent owing to passing vehicles contacting, through an error of judgment on the part of. the driver, and on somo occasions through insufficient road .width, providing a hazard' to the approaching or passing motorist, who possibly may. bo travelling at ftperfectly safe speed, except at the moment of passing another moving vehicle. Tbo American Bureau of Public Roads has been investigating this aspect of road safety, and has devised instruments which record on a chart tho speed of vehicles as they j>ass other vehicles on the highway, either singly or in groups, also the distance between vehicles before, while passing and at completion of passing. The data thus obtained is being sifted with a view to interpreting the effectiveness of the highways as a means of modern transportation and affording an analysis of the entire problem of vehicular movement and the practices of motor drivers in normal highway traffic. So far, tho research has shown that there are four variables in each simple passing. Three of them —the speed of the passed vehicle, tho speed of the passing vehicle and the speed of the approaching vehicle, if any—are independent variables, while the fourth, the dependent variable, is the distance required for the completion of tho manoeuvre.