REACTIONS AND ROAD SAFETY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sta,—In his article on " Reactions and Road Safety " (The Spectator, February 25th) Surgeon Rear-Admiral Beadnell suggests that part of the examination of prospective drivers should be the recording of their normal reaction-times, and that those below a certain standard should be definitely refused driving licences.
About eight years ago the N.I.I.P. made a detailed investi- gation of the problem of testing motor-drivers. Apparatus was devised for assessing not only reaction-times but also other mental characteristics which have an important bearing on safe driving, such as resistance to distraction, ability to attend to several things at once, and judgement of spatial relations, relative size, and speed. Finally, a " road test " was given by an appliance which reproduced the conditions of actual driving and provided a graphic record of the track and speed of the driver.
The validity of this battery of tests was confirmed by the dose correspondence between the results obtained from a number of drivers and the independent ranking of the same drivers by the company employing them.
It is interesting to note that in the course of the debate in the House of Commons on the Road Traffic Bill of 1934, Sir E. Graham-Little proposed that the passing of such tests should be made an essential condition of holding a driver's licence. The official attitude was not wholly unsympathetic, but the Minister of Transport (Mr. Oliver Stanley) felt that the Institute's tests would place no heavy a burden upon the new machinery for testing outlined in the Bill. Subsequent events have proved only too clearly that the ordinary driving test does not always provide an adequate criterion of com- petence. The advisability of supplementing it with tests of an intending driver's innate capacities, or at least of using these tests in the case of drivers whose fitness to continue to drive is suspect, is therefore surely a matter that calls for further
consideration.—Yours faithfully, CHARLES S. MYERS, Aldwych House, Principal, National Institute London, W.C.2,. of Industrial Psychology.
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