Can Ergonomics Improve Primary Safety in Road Transport Systems?

Abstract

The majority of road accidents are attributable to human errors in perception and decision-making, or to difficulties arising at the interfaces between the road-user, vehicles and the traffic environment. This suggests that the traditional expertise of the ergonomist, in system design and training for skills, might gainfully be employed in the improvement of primary safety in road transport. However, their general preference for engineering rather than ergonomic solutions suggests that traffic authorities may regard the latter as inimical to accident prevention.

Alternative bases for such a belief are discussed. They include theories of ‘danger compensation’, ‘risk perception’, and ‘attention and effort’.

It is concluded that the ergonomic approach to primary road safety does have limitations. Ergonomists should therefore concentrate on accident countermeasures where safety improvements cannot be offset against other personal gains by the individual road user.

A few examples of such measures are briefly presented, under the headings of error prevention and error correction.