 Summary |
| Below is our summary of the characteristics of human errors and key contributing factors for preventing errors and their repetition. |
| (1) | Most errors occur in the stages of, first, perception and then judgement and prediction, and few in the stage of operation. |
| (2) | There are 2-3 errors per party to an accident; in other words, there are two or more opportunities to avoid the accident. |
| (3) | There is a high incidence of failure to notice travellers on perpendicular paths, for reasons primarily of carelessness, consisting of reduced
levels of concentration on driving, and failure of identification due to the mistaken assumption that there oughtn't to be anyone up ahead, followed
by obstructions of view, as caused by buildings, shade of other vehicles or poor weather.
In other words, these are errors of "I would have seen it if I looked, but I didn't," followed by errors of "I wouldn't have seen it even on the
lookout" (obstructions of view). |
| (4) | On the other hand, drivers rarely fail to notice intersections per se, and there are more than a few cases in which drivers, having identified an
intersection, do not assume "there won't be anyone on the intersecting road," but managed to recover from errors of perception with respect to
a traveller on a perpendicular path through the safety-oriented decision-making and prediction that "there might be someone on the intersecting road"
and taking care to drive defensively. |
| (5) | Education with emphasis on the following points would seem to be of importance in preventing these errors:
a. When driving, concentrate above all on driving
b. Always look for other vehicles at a stoplight or other intersection entailing a temporary stop, even when you have the right of way
c. At intersections with an obstructed view and no one visible, assume that there might be someone there, even if I can't see him, not simply that nobody's there |
