driver-qualification-handbook-english

2Causes of crashes and acceptance of mistakesMost people don’t like to admit that they are wrong or that they make mistakes.Maybe this is why many drivers involved in crashes don’t want to admit that theymight have done the wrong thing.Research shows that drivers tend to attribute all or most of the blame for a crashto the other driver, the road, the weather, but little to themselves. For example,the picture below shows a sketch of an actual road crash where a driver ran into amotorcyclist. The text below the picture quotes what the driver said to the policeabout the crash. As you can see the driver blamed the motorcyclist even though itwasn’t the rider’s fault.ASource (6)“Due to the damage to my car I think it was going quite fast. I reckon he could have missed me anyway, if he’san experienced rider.” – Driver of the blue car labelled A.And when people makeinsurance claims after crashes,they generally avoid taking theblame.The experts call this ‘externalattribution’ – where youattribute blame or the reasonthat things happen to thingsoutside of yourself. As youmight have guessed, ‘internal attribution’ is when you assign blame or the reasonthat things happen to yourself. The healthiest situation is where you can recognisethe things that are due to you and what you do and the things that aren’t. Researchsuggests that people who can honestly recognise what is their fault and what isothers’ are safer drivers. It’s tough to accept that some things are down to you.Driver qualification handbook 35