It Won't Happen to Me: How Overconfidence Kills

By Bruce Moeller
President and CEO, DriveCam Inc.

United States Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters recently announced a nationwide drop in the number of road deaths. The decline, the largest in 15 years, has resulted in the lowest highway fatality rate on record of 1.42 deaths per hundred million vehicle miles traveled.

No doubt the statistics are encouraging, but still the fact remains that 42,642 people died in traffic crashes in 2006. And when you consider that more than 116 human lives Ð fathers and mothers; sons and daughters; brothers and sisters Ð are cut short every day, there is not yet cause to celebrate.

Despite Peters' report and the overall decline in highway fatalities, the U.S. still is behind other countries in road safety and has become one of the world's most dangerous places to drive. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Transport Forum has ranked the U.S. number 42 Ð below Australia, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom Ð of the 48 countries it measured in terms of fatalities per capita.

It is time to get serious about a national catastrophe.

Congress continues to propose legislation pertaining to vehicle safety and manufacturers focus on designing technology to make automobiles safer. While new technologies can warn drivers when a traffic signal is about to turn red, or protect operators from drifting into an adjacent lane, evidence shows that innovation does not take the place of solid judgment and skill behind the wheel.

In fact, a research paper, titled "An Exploration of the Offset Hypothesis Using Disaggregate Data: The Case of Airbags and Antilock Brakes," published in the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty (Volume 32, Issue 2) suggests drivers adapt to invention by becoming less vigilant about safety. Americans are remiss to believe that cars are more at fault than drivers themselves in collisions. An automobile, after all, is just a machine designed to get you from point A to point B. A vehicle does not have choice, experience or knowledge on its side. Safer cars support the behavioral concept of false positive reinforcement Ð the idea that an individual can drive recklessly, or even just a bit less responsibly, because the automobile is extra safe.

A human being left to his or her own devices will push the limits until they break. He will find ways to subvert the system. Think about it: We all know the rules of the road, but regularly dodge them. Without the presence of law enforcement, you follow too closely, speed and weave. You can handle it, right?

The average driver should follow the four-second rule. You, on the other hand, prescribe to one or two seconds. Because you have not hit anybody, your rules workÉfor now.

When you do collide, it will be deemed an accident. That is what people usually say when something goes wrong. But there really are no mishaps. We are not powerless to prevent the collision right in front of us.

It is a losing equation: False positive reinforcement plus a false sense of security equals positive danger on America's roadways. The more quickly we realize we can change the tide through behavior modification, the safer all of us will be. This conclusion pushes the DriveCam team forward everyday.

With more than 70,000 vehicles deployed, DriveCam's behavior-based risk mitigation solution has cut vehicle damages, workers' compensation and personal injury costs by 30 to 90 percent. Our approach reduces claims costs and ultimately saves lives, proof that road deaths do not have to be tolerated and actually can be eradicated altogether.

In the end, cars do not kill people, people kill people. If we take a public position that human beings can be the change, our roadways and society as a whole will benefit.

What do you think? E-mail me at news@drivecam.com.