The recent CIECA Congress held in Berlin was titled “Personal resources for safe driving” and included a number of well known speakers.
Prior to the Congress the CIECA members General Assembly took place and Mark Magee (GB ADI Registrar) was elected to the position of Vice President of CIECA and will now be part of the CIECA permanent bureau. It was also announced that Lesley Young (GB Chief Driving Examiner) had joined the CIECA Expert Advisory Group (EAG).
Following the Assembly the Members’ Forum introduced a number of new faces to members including Ed Passant, UK Forum of Mobility Centres; UAR Finland Oy, Petri Norman, Finland and Michael Bennett, UK jelly learn.
There were a number of short presentations including Thomas Wagner (Dekra), Germany who discussed the concept of “Beyond driving skills and knowledge: Personality related competences as key resources for safe driving”. A paper titled “Driver profiles and their relationship to crash risk” was presented by Charles Johnson (CAS), UK. “The design, development and initiation of An Emergency Services Driving Standard (ESDS) in Ireland” was presented by Frank McGill (RSA), Ireland and Lesley Young (DVSA), UK spoke to delegates about the “Transformation of the Practical Driving Test in GB”.
Congress proper opened with welcome addresses from the hosts Dr. Walter Eichendorf, President DVR and Guido Zielke, Head of the Road Traffic Directorate, Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Germany
There was then a packed programme of speakers, many of them traffic psychologists who produced a lot of interesting and informative material.
| How to deal in the future with accident cause number one: Inattention | Dr. Gregor Bartl, German Society for Traffic Psychology, Germany |
| Methods for assessing driving fitness and personal resources | Jürgen Brenner – Hartmann, TÜV SÜD Life Service GmbH, Germany |
| Learning to drive means learning about yourself | Ludo Kluppels, Belgian Road Safety Institute, Belgian |
| How to be aware of and to target the learner driver’s state of mind | Kåre Robertsen & Hilde Kjelsrud, Nord Trøndelag University, Norway |
| New methods in driving instruction | Dr. Armin Kaltenegger, Road Safety Board, Austria |
| It takes brains to take risks | Dagfinn Moe, SINTEF Technology and Society, Finland |
| It is not age that determines risk taking behaviour, but the extent to which the person cope with their stages in development | Heinz Albert Stumpen, German Police Academy, Germany |
| Personality traits as a valid predictor of risky driving | Matus Sucha, Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic |
| The importance of psychological assessment, risk behaviour and driver’s perception | Fátima Pereira da Silva, InOutCister/Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Portugal |
| Challenges for society in meeting the health and wellbeing needs of the older driver due to deterioration in personal resources | Anuraj Varshney, Forum of Mobility Centres, UK |
All the material presented was very interesting and very thought provoking. I’m not sure how some countries might view the idea that following a psychological assessment a person might not be allowed to start or continue to drive.
I come from a culture where having a driving licence depends on having the opportunity to prove you can carry out the practical skill of driving I’m not sure I would want to be denied the right to drive on the basis of a psychological assessment but maybe that is the future.
Be First to Comment