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Chapter 9 of 10

Avoiding danger on the road

This short appendix is about how you see risk. It explains where your sense of danger comes from, asks you some honest questions about your own driving, names the four skills of hazard perception and then lets you practise spotting hazards in pictures. Use it as a revision exercise once you have studied the chapters.

  • About 8 minutes
  • 4 sections
  • Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, pp. 177–181

Chapter 9 · 4 sections

After this chapter you can

  • State the aim of the appendix: to define, understand, calculate and avoid risk.
  • List the four things our perception of hazard and risk is based on.
  • Name the four hazard perception skills the handbook tells you to learn.
  • Explain why the hazards you do not see are the most dangerous.
  • Use the hazard challenge pictures to practise counting potential hazards.

Section 1 of 4

Perception of hazard and risk

The handbook lists four things that shape how each of us perceives hazard and risk.

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 177

Note

What this appendix is for

The handbook’s stated aim here is to give you a framework for analysing the risk you face on the road. It sets out to do four things with risk: define it, understand it, calculate it and avoid it.

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 177

Definition

Where your sense of risk comes from

The handbook asks where the way we perceive hazard and risk comes from. Its answer is that our perceptions are based on four things.

  • Personal experience of the adverse event.
  • Social and cultural background and beliefs.
  • Our ability to exercise control over a particular risk.
  • The extent to which information is gained from different sources, for example from the media.

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 177

Section 2 of 4

Questions to ask yourself

A short self-assessment about why crashes happen and how risky your own habits are. The handbook gives no answers.

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 177

Steps

How to answer the self-check

The questionnaire only helps if it shows what you really think. The handbook gives three instructions.

  1. Do not spend too much time thinking about the answer.
  2. If you are unsure, give your first preference answer.
  3. Be honest.

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 177

Note

Why do drivers crash, and what would help?

The first questions ask for your opinion. There is no right answer printed; the point is to notice what you believe.

  • Why do drivers crash? The choices offered are inadequate training, carelessness, a licensing test that needs improvement, bad road design, poor understanding of the dangers involved in driving, or something else.
  • How can driving be improved? The choices are more police enforcement, better signage on the road, better education and training, improved licensing standards, or something else.
  • When travelling by car, do you wear your seat belt always, sometimes or never?

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 177

Note

Four questions about your own driving

The handbook then asks four questions about driving and leaves them unanswered. Try them honestly, then look up stopping distance and crash forces in the chapter on safety while driving.

  • Is driving 15 km/h above the speed limit risky?
  • Is running a yellow light risky, OK, or are you not sure?
  • If you need to stop suddenly from 60 km/h, how much distance do you need?
  • If you crash your car at 60 km/h, what height of fall would the impact on your body be equivalent to?

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 177

Section 3 of 4

Hazard perception

Seeing a hazard in time can be the difference between life and death. It is a skill you learn.

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 178

Important

The hazards you do not see

Perceiving a hazard can mean the difference between life and death. The handbook says it is the hazards you do not see, or cannot avoid, that cause the most deaths and injuries.

See it on the road table: Lesson 5 of 5 · Hazard street

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 178

Illustrated

Four tiles under the heading "Hazard perception is a survival skill. Learn to": Scan, Process, Prioritize, Take action.
Figure 9.1A survival skill in four parts. Original illustration, based on Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 178

A survival skill in four parts

The handbook calls hazard perception a survival skill and tells you to learn four things. It lists them without further explanation.

  • Scan.
  • Process.
  • Prioritize.
  • Take action.

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 178

Section 4 of 4

The hazard challenge

Eight pictures to practise on. Count the potential hazards in each one.

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, pp. 178–181

Steps

How the challenge works

Each picture comes with the same question: how many hazards can you see? You count the number of potential hazards in each picture, from zero to five, and write them down. The handbook prints no answers, so compare your list with your instructor or another learner.

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 178

Example

Check against current rules

The eight scenes

Open your handbook at pages 178 to 181 and work through the pictures. These short descriptions are ours, only to help you find each one; they do not tell you what the hazards are.

  • Page 178: a busy road in rain by day, and a rainy night seen through a wet windscreen.
  • Page 179: a pedestrian on a marked crossing with a car close by, and a crossroads with traffic lights and a yellow box.
  • Page 180: a T-junction with a stop sign, and a multi-lane road where another road joins.
  • Page 181: a crossroads, and a roundabout.

Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, pp. 178–181Scene descriptions are our own reading of uncaptioned pictures; the handbook gives no answer key.

Check against current rules. This point could not be fully verified or may have changed since the 2018 handbook.

Chapter 9 recap

Remember this

  • The aim: define, understand, calculate and avoid risk.
  • Your sense of risk comes from personal experience, background and beliefs, how much control you feel you have, and what you hear from sources such as the media.
  • Hazard perception is a survival skill: scan, process, prioritize, take action.
  • The hazards you do not see or cannot avoid cause the most deaths and injuries.
  • Answer the self-check quickly and honestly; the handbook gives no answer key.

Common misconceptions

  • Myth

    : My sense of how risky something is comes purely from the facts of the situation.

    Fact

    : The handbook says our perceptions of hazard and risk are based on personal experience of the adverse event, social and cultural background and beliefs, our ability to exercise control over the risk, and information gained from sources such as the media.

    Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 177

  • Myth

    : The obvious hazards are the ones that hurt people.

    Fact

    : According to the handbook, it is the hazards you do not see or cannot avoid that cause the most deaths and injuries.

    Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 178

  • Myth

    : Spotting hazards is a talent that some drivers simply have.

    Fact

    : The handbook treats hazard perception as a survival skill to be learned: scan, process, prioritize and take action.

    Source: Handbook Appendix: Avoiding danger on the road, p. 178

Chapter 9 · practice

Check your knowledge

6 quick questions on this chapter, with an explanation after each answer. Or practise all 7 questions written for it.

Practice tests that include this chapter