Automobile Risk Avoidance Aptitude Studies of Reaction

¶ … Automobile Risk Avoidance Aptitude Studies of reaction times have been of interest to a wide variety of people for several centuries. Among one of the industries that stands to benefit the most from a more comprehensive understanding of reaction times is the automobile insurance industry, which charges customers premiums based on the risk that they might get into an accident. There is reason to believe that this propensity is directly correlated to reaction time.

Whereas in simple reaction time experiments, there is only one stimulus and one response, in choice reaction time experiments, the user must give a response that corresponds to the stimulus. This system most closely resembles that of driving. Insurers have found that reaction time is determined as the time required for a driver to perceive a hazard and apply the brakes or turn the steering wheel. As a result, reaction time tests used to measure driving competency would have to focus on this particular metric. Background.

The study of reaction time first became popular when 19th-century neurological scientists wished to explore the nature of the brain. Reaction time has been a key focus in neurological testing and has many applications, ranging from sports to every day activities. Studies have shown that many factors impair reaction time. For example, a person who is too relaxed or too tense cannot react as quickly as one who is neither. Age is correlated to reaction time; people peak in their late 20's.

Many things such as alcohol impair reaction times significantly. Measurement Systems The experiment that I have designed compares the visual and auditory reaction times of people who regularly drive automobiles with non-drivers. The study will focus on people who have experience driving on a daily basis. The results of such a test would be of interest to several different groups of people. Foremost, automobile insurers have a vested interest in gauging the ability of a driver to avoid an accident.

Although many accidents are not a driver's fault, per se, reaction time has a direct bearing on a driver's ability to recognize danger and to take evasive measures. In the United States, drivers that get their licenses later face steeper insurance premiums. The implication is that a learning-experience curve exists that favors those with more experience. However, much of the risk aversion that can be found in older or more experienced drivers could have a direct correlation to reaction time.

If this is the case, it could be possible to offer discounts to people who voluntarily submitted proof that their ability to react to potentially hazardous situations is superior to that of the average driver. If it can be proven that experienced drivers have a better reaction time than inexperienced ones, this metric could be considered as a suitable proxy for driving ability. Current insurance discounts are offered to drivers for a variety of reasons, and some have little more than a cursory psychological bearing on driving ability.

For instance, a 24-year-old unmarried male driver who owns a sports car faces a significantly higher premium than his 25-year-old friend who is married and drives a sedan. Sociological' insurance qualifiers as opposed to physical ones such as reaction time should still be considered relevant to a certain extent. For instance, a driver with superior reaction time might significantly impair his ability to drive by using a cellular phone or drinking a cup of coffee while behind the wheel.

Because insurers face the moral hazard of drivers not being forthcoming about these 'lifestyle' choices that affect their driving ability, sociological categories serve as a proxy. Because they are effectively a form of discrimination, many of these categories are based on a varying array of state regulations. However, if we continue to use the previously mentioned example, the 24-year-old would absorb some of the costs ascribed a statistically more risk-prone-20-year-old sports car owner.

If some of the metrics used in determining insurance premiums were calibrated and ability-based, they could more accurately ascribe premiums to riskier drivers. This is not an exclusively American practice: for instance, the civil code of the province of Ontario maintains that "prohibitions against discrimination are not infringed where a contract of automobile insurance differentiates on reasonable and bona fide grounds because of age, sex, marital status, family status or handicap." (Zurich Insurance Co. v.

Ontario (Human Rights Comm.) (1992), 16 C.H.R.R.) As it relates to automobiles, reaction time is determined as the time required for a driver to perceive a hazard and apply the brakes or turn the steering wheel. As a result, any good test to determine reaction time would take this 'recognition test' into account.

In such experiments, there are some stimuli that should be responded to which are known as the 'memory set' and others that should get no response (the 'distractor set'.) Memory set occurrences that would elicit a response might include a small child running across a street, while distractors include almost anything else within a driver's peripheral vision that would distract his attention.

Unlike with conventional experiments to determine recognition, some would say that a test that would require drivers to respond to stimuli would have to be one where distractors would far, far outnumber recognition events if it were to successfully emulate a driver's experience. However, such an argument would be predicated on the assumption that the comparative reaction times among test participants would be distributed differently with a test more closely geared at emulation than one without.

Although reaction times could differ significantly between one series of tests and another, both would be serviceable as long as they did not change in relation to one another. This experiment would test the reaction time of 30 drivers with 30 non-drivers. The number was selected because it takes 30 data to form a distribution. It is important that these people be from the same type of area: in urban areas, people's reaction times must be higher because they run across busy streets.

Elsewhere, many men play video games that hone their reaction time skills. Because video games often reward players for exceptional reaction time, they should be of interest to insurers. If it could be found that video games significantly enhance one's ability to avoid accidents, one could foresee a time when insurance companies bought the rights to certain video games.