Welcome to the Home of the National Institute for Driver Behavior
Welcome to our site! The National Institute for Driver Behavior is dedicated to the premise that education is an essential component in the formula for crash reduction. There is a need to have clearly defined criteria for driver behavior for all drivers so that they can, over a period of time, acquire and internalize a style of low-risk driving.
Mission Statement
MISSION 1) To provide lifetime learning opportunities for developing lifelong habits for risk prevention.
Risk management is necessary throughout life, beginning with early exposure to play and recreational activities –– to adult recreational and workplace activities –– to senior citizen activities. The objective of the Institute is to provide children with a decision making structure that will have transferable values which can be applied to driving attitudes and driving behavioral patterns. Making good driving decisions requires a structure that can be formulated into unconscious behavioral values and patterns that provide automatic low-risk performance. There are many behaviors one can learn from early-life experiences which can be and should be applied to late life performance.
MISSION 2) To help drivers acquire preventive behavior habits to manage risk - to ruduce, avoid or eliminate risk.
Drivers make most of their decisions on an unconscious level based upon an inner set of values as to what actions are acceptable or unacceptable. With preventive behavior habits a driver will automatically process information and execute decisions that result in low risk and high gain. Without a well-designed structure for acquiring preventive behavior, habitual performance can occur with higher risk than one is aware of. It is the intent of the Institute to provide multiple opportunities during one’s lifetime to discover and acquire a set of values that can generate automatic preventive behavior.
MISSION 3) To identify and develop standards for low risk driver performance habits.
The Institute has formulated very precise behavioral patterns that drivers should perform. Such behavioral patterns would include specific actions such as: searching intersections to the left, front, and right zones; keeping four seconds following time; turning the head before turning the steering wheel; target area searching, and evaluating the targeting path for changes resulting in line-of-sight restrictions and/or path-of-travel closures.
MISSION 4) To formulate and disseminate risk management and educational modules for use throughout the school system and the work place.
The Institute will provide educational modules that allow individuals to develop risk management behaviors into habits and to reinforce the benefits gained by having such habits. For example, an educational module for teaching the behavior of targeting could be provided to a third grade teacher to have students learn how targeting applies to pedestrian walking skills; a fifth grade teacher could get a module on how targeting applies to bicycling; an eighth grade teacher could have a module on how targeting applies to operating recreational vehicles such as: snow mobiling or boating skills; a tenth grade teacher, or a driver educator, could apply targeting skills to steering a car and searching for problems. In the workplace, an operator of emergency vehicles could learn the values of targeting as applied to operating a vehicle with lights and siren at higher than traffic flow speeds; a corporate driver could learn that targeting skills can eliminate the stress of driving in heavy commuter traffic; and a delivery truck operator could learn how targeting eases the risk of monitoring traffic while looking for a delivery address. All of these situations require the same applications of targeting.
MISSION 5) To partner with existing organizations to achieve a common goal of driver risk reduction.
There are many organizations – private, public, civic, government agencies – that apply a great amount of energy and resources to the goal of reducing motor vehicle crashes and occupant injuries. The Institute will serve to coordinate and channel these efforts into an effective direction to maximize the efforts of each group.