Dr Duncan Guest is Associate Professor in Psychology at Nottingham Trent University and chair of the Cognitive Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society. His research mostly focuses on understanding cognition (attention, perception, memory) and applied aspects of this. One of his research interests is decline in visual processing in older adults, and recently he has been the principal investigator on a two year project on hazard perception in mobility scooter users at road crossings, funded by the Road Safety Trust and undertaken by the Transport Research in Psychology research group at Nottingham Trent University.  

Presentation: Hazard perception at road crossings in mobility scooter users
It is estimated that there are around 300-350k mobility scooters in the UK (RICS, 2014). However, training for new users is highly variable and not mandatory and most training focuses on vehicle handling. To date no research has systematically assessed the hazards users face and what strategies may help negotiate these. Over the past two years Duncan Guest and colleagues have completed a research project funded by the Road Safety Trust to do this.

This presentation will talk through the various studies (large-scale questionnaire, interviews, filming users drive round a city centre) that helped the researchers develop an online training tool to help scooter users identify hazards. The project team has made the online training video – See & Scoot - available for free at www.testmydriving.com/see-scoot.  

The training is unique because it is evidence based, filmed from the users’ perspective - giving potential new users a much better impression of what it feels like to be a scooter user, and uses live (not staged) footage. We have also conducted a study to assess the impact of using the training tool.  This presentation will discuss the highlights of this work and outline directions for future research.