Offer of skid avoidance training generally does not reduce young driver risk
Skid avoidance courses are offered as a way for new drivers to gain more experience behind the wheel and learn how to avoid a skid or recover from one. However, a recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that teenage drivers are generally uninterested in these courses and do not have a significantly better driving record than drivers who did not take the course.
IIHS said one of the major shortcomings of these programs is a lack of appeal to newly licensed drivers or their parents. The study also concluded that while skid avoidance courses may offer some benefits, they do not have a noticeable impact on reducing the higher crash risk of new drivers or bringing down the rate of citations these drivers receive.
The study analyzed the effect of skid avoidance training on students in Montgomery County, Maryland. These students had completed a basic driver education course, which is required to earn a provisional license in the state, between March of 2011 and August of 2012. A total of 1,481 students between the ages of 16 and 17 were offered skid avoidance training free of charge. The program usually costs $225.
The course on skid avoidance and vehicle control included in the study is an optional program offered by a driving school in Montgomery County. Participants received one-on-one training from an instructor, a current or former police officer.
The vehicles used in the training included a hydraulic system which allows the instructor to simulate low traction conditions at low speed and on dry terrain. The program emphasized the importance of avoiding a skid by slowing down and refraining from behaviors such as erratic steering or hard braking.
IIHS offered the training free of charge to 1,481 students. Of this group, 77.1 percent—or 1,142— declined the offer. Another 105 accepted the training but failed to schedule an appointment or show up for one. The remaining 234 students completed the course.
"Few people were motivated to take this course, even when it was offered for free," said Charles Farmer, lead author of the study and director of statistical services at IIHS. "We don't know whether it would have shown clearer benefits if more people had accepted the offer. What is clear is that offering the course as an option, even for free, isn't an effective way to prevent large numbers of teen crashes."
The driving records of the group that completed the skid avoidance training were compared over the next two years to the students who declined the offer. The records were also compared to a control group of 5,046 students from Montgomery County who received basic driving instruction at another school.
IIHS says the group that completed the skid avoidance training had fewer moving violations and a lower risk of getting involved in a police-reported crash in the two years after the training. However, the organization says there was no indication that the training led to these benefits after the results were adjusted for potential differences between those who accepted the offer and those who declined it.
Drivers who took the skid avoidance course had a rate of 25.6 moving violations per 100,000 days. This rate was 14 percent higher than drivers who did not take the course, who had 22.4 moving violations per 100,000 days.
IIHS says the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant. Both groups also performed better than drivers who completed driving education at other schools and had a rate of 34.6 moving violations per 100,000 days.
When the moving violations were restricted to speeding violations, the group that took skid avoidance training had a rate of 15.9 violations per 100,000 days while the group that did not take the training had a rate of 16.2. IIHS says the 2 percent difference in this rate was also not significant.
The differences between the groups on police-reported crash rates were negligible. Drivers who took the training had 8.7 crashes per 100,000 days, compared to a rate of 8.6 for those who did not take the training as well as the larger control group.
IIHS says the estimated effect of the course varied widely depending on which one of three statistical methods was used. Estimates of the effect of the course on moving violations ranged from a 6 percent decrease to a 150 percent increase, while the estimated effect on crashes ranged from a 27 percent decrease to a 6 percent increase. IIHS says none of the estimates was statistically significant.
Though specialized driver education courses intend to improve a student's driving ability and experience, critics charge that they might make a driver overconfident in their own driving ability. IIHS says this effect was not observed in the skid avoidance study. While students who took this training were more likely to say they had benefited from driver education, they did not significantly rate their overall driving abilities as superior to others and were also more likely to rate certain risks— including hard braking in the snow or rain—higher than drivers who had not taken the training.
IIHS says that while skid control training does not seem to significantly reduce the crash risk of newly licensed drivers, it may offer some insight into the development into a more effective program.