Fatigue, mindset and ecology in the hazard dominant environment

Ratings made by 47 experienced drivers to 18 items of a Fatigue Advisory are highly consistent. Every item is rated ‘very’ or ‘extremely important’ to the safety of inexperienced drivers. In contrast, ‘adequacy of knowledge’ about fatigue is rated consistently lower. This inconsistency may reflect a culturally based confusion about fatigue. Education and public awareness campaigns need to emphasize that ‘immoderate indulgence of driving’ is as dangerous to safety as ‘immoderate indulgence of alcohol’. A basic challenge is to improve understanding of the manner in which the experience of fatigue emerges during driving. Study of perceptual/cognitive manifestations aided by operational definition of fatigue as a ‘declarative state’ renders driving fatigue a definite observable subjective condition arising from continuous operation of a vehicle. Specific cognitive symptoms of fatigue such as boredom, tiredness, inattention, etc. emerging with driving fatigue, are circumscribed within the activity of driving itself and also reflect the particular conditions in which driving fatigue occurs. This approach reveals ecological dimensions to the problem. The specific experiences of driving fatigue are seen to emerge as a function of the driver environment relationship in a particular driving environment. It is suggested that the concept of the ‘hazard dominant environment’ and the compensating landscape perceptions of ‘prospect’ and ‘refuge’ proposed by Appleton [(1995) The Experience of Landscape. Wiley, London] in concert with the concept of environmental ‘affordances’ provided by Gibson [(1979) An Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin, Boston] open promising possibilities for improving environmental education about driving fatigue.