Post-court Road Safety Interventions for Convicted Traffic Offenders: Recommendations of a Judgement and Decision-making Working Group

A research working group of four judgement and decision-making experts was convened to examine the literature on risky human behaviour, including driving, and to make
recommendations on what format, structure and content is likely to have the biggest
positive impact on road safety attitudes and behaviour in the specific group of convicted traffic offenders.

A working group of four experts in the field of judgement and decision making was set up to provide a summary of the scientific basis to the provision of guidance for the development of post-court courses. The four judgement and decision-making experts worked between the beginning of April and the end of June 2006 to integrate their existing complementary expertise in order to produce the scientifically-based guidance, founded on an extensive survey of relevant scientific literature.

The aim of the group was to produce a review document summarising the scientific knowledge underpinning specific guidance on the following issues:

• Course content – recommendations on the constructs that need to be addressed in the interventions;
• Course delivery – the ideal method of delivering interventions on these constructs to this target group.

The extensive group interactions were conducted mainly remotely, with four all-day joint meetings, during which:

• The identification of the concepts to be covered was made;
• The allocation of research review areas between the members was decided;
• The interim findings and emerging recommendations were extensively discussed and questioned.

Each expert was responsible for surveying a large section of the relevant scientific
literature with subsequent group-based integration of the developing knowledge base.

In addition, further information was sought about the demographics of the target group, the personal characteristics of likely course attendees, and the way in which the attendees are likely to approach a course, including pre-course attitudes and personal views on the situation that led to the conviction and subsequent course attendance. Several other experts were also consulted.