Martin Lavalliere

In Canada, as in all Western countries, the aging population raises concerns about highway safety. The increasing number of older people in the population and their desire to maintain a certain form of autonomy by continuing to drive pose a sizeable challenge for society: how do we maintain people's driving skills as these people age?

The objective of this study, funded by Auto21, a Network of Centres of Excellence, was to assess the visual search behaviours of older drivers during lane-changing manouvres. To do so, Martin Lavallière and his colleagues used an automobile-driving simulator. Their results showed that, compared with younger drivers, older drivers checked their blind spots and rear-view mirrors less frequently before initiating lane changes.

The next steps of the project will be to assess whether a simulator-based driver-training program can improve safe driving behaviours in older drivers. This program might enable older drivers to maintain adequate driving for successful aging by reinforcing the behaviours that characterize good drivers and pointing out those behaviours that are less desirable.

This is an innovative project because it will enable drivers to learn in a controlled, safe environment in which they can be presented with situations that cannot be evaluated during road tests. The results of the research may yield some important benefits in terms of training for older drivers.

In 2008, Mr. Lavalliere is beginning the second year of his doctoral studies. He is currently working on processing the data from the simulator-based driver-training program, which incorporates feedback. The results of this research are very promising because they show that with good training and practice on a simulator, older drivers can learn how to modify their behaviour when they are on the road.