Testing the psychophysical characteristics of professional drivers - Can we identify unsafe drivers?

- Testing of psychophysical characteristics of professional drivers was performed.
- No significant differences between the results of drivers with and without crashes.
- No link between drivers' results and drivers' risk of being involved in a crash.
- Younger drivers have better psychophysical characteristics for safe driving.
- Drivers with higher education levels have better characteristics for safe driving.

Most experts in the field of traffic safety agree with the fact that the human factor is the most responsible for the occurrence of traffic accidents. Many authors have demonstrated the influence of psychophysical characteristics on driver's behavior in traffic. The question arose whether the testing of driver's psychophysical characteristics can identify unsafe drivers. The aim of this work was to conduct testing of psychophysical characteristics of professional drivers from a transport company and to compare the results of those drivers who have been in a traffic accident with those who have never been in a traffic accident. It turns out that there were no statistical differences between the test results of psychophysical characteristics of the drivers who had been in accidents versus those who hadn't been in accidents (which means that tests of psychophysical characteristic of drivers can not accurately determine the driver's risk of accidents). An additional objective was also to examine the effect of the driver's age and the level of formal education in their psychophysical characteristics. It has been shown that younger drivers and drivers with high levels of education have better psychophysical characteristics in regards to driving safely.