Relationship of laboratory and on-road tests for driving-school students and experienced drivers

There is a pressing need to evaluate driving ability without an actual driv ing test but no reliable, standardised procedure is available. This study i nvestigated the resulting distortion performance evaluation for different d river groups in on-road tests due to driving skills and driving style. Tno groups, 15 female driving school students and 25 experienced male drivers w ere examined using cognitive and psychomotor tests and standard personality questionnaires as well, as an on-road driving test. The students made sign ificantly fewer errors on the driving test than the experienced drivers. Th e former group's driving performance could be predicted by errors on the la boratory tests, along with personality factors, while experienced drivers' driving errors were best predicted by slowness on laboratory tests. This st udy suggests that, when a series of standard cognitive and psychomotor test s are considered, different measures may apply in predicting young people's ability to drive safely based on assessing driving ability of experienced drivers, assumed lowered due to distorted driving style.