Forgetting Near-Accidents: The Roles of Severity, Culpability and Experience in the Poor Recall of Dangerous Driving Situations

Abstract

It is often assumed that real-life events such as minor road accidents and near accidents will be well remembered. However, surveys of self-reported accidents suggest that respondents apparently forget approximately one third of their road accidents each year. This paper explores this possibility by looking at memory for the near-accidents in which drivers are involved. In a pilot study drivers carried microcassette recorders in their cars and reported near-accidents after each journey. These data confirmed that the frequency of near-accidents is greatly under-estimated when subjects are simply asked to recall them. The main study then compared reports and recalls of over 7000 car journeys from 80 subjects over the course of a year. These included more than 400 reports or recalls of near-accidents. The influences of the driver's experience, the severity of the near-accident, and the driver's self-perceived degree of blame were additionally explored. It is concluded that near-accidents are generally forgotten extremely rapidly, with an estimated 80% of incidents being no longer reported after a delay of up to two weeks. Serious near-accidents and those where the driver admitted being to blame in the incident were least likely to be forgotten. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.