Effects of supervised driving on young novice drivers’ behaviour

Graduated Driving Licensing (GDL) system with supervised driving exercise had been adopted widely in the developing countries like New Zealand, Canada and United States. Previous studies indicated that GDL system proven effective in reducing road fatalities of young novices. Unfortunately, this system has not been implemented in Malaysia. Hence, the effectiveness of the system could not be assessed. Therefore, this study aims were two folds, first, to investigate the effect of supervised driving on young novice drivers behaviour in Malaysia and secondly, to identify the type of supervised driving that could be used to improve the performance of young novice drivers. The first study involved a quantitative survey of young novice drivers behaviour (N = 200). This study identified there were four factors contributed to young novice driving behaviour in supervised driving: accompany, attitude towards accompanied driving, gender and willingness to pay. Second study involved a simulation method using pre- and post-test of hazard perception test with different types of supervision (not being supervised; being supervised but the driving supervisor is talking about something not related to road safety and being supervised and the driving supervisor guide the young novice driver to anticipate hazard throughout the journey). It was found that supervisory person who assist and guide young novice driver to anticipate hazard had increase the driving performance of young novice driver. Overall, the study indicate that supervised driving had contributed to the positive and safer driving behaviour and it is suggested that a minimum hazard perception training for at least 150 minutes is needed to increase the driving performance of young novice drivers during their early stage of driving. The result from this study had provide a useful insight to the policy maker if supervised driving would be implemented in the future.