New Research: Dragways may increase street racing

[Saru]

In this thread Grumpy Rooster (aka YEL020) posted this link to the ABC:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...1/s1250635.htm

Dragways may increase street racing: study

A new study has questioned the assumption that dragways reduce the incidence of illegal racing on public roads.

The joint study between Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) in Canberra and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand has found dragways are linked with more relaxed attitudes to speeding and increased risk-taking on public roads.

One hundred and eighty male drivers under 25-years of age were interviewed as part of the research.

The ACT Government is currently pursuing plans to build a dragway.

ADFA researcher James Warn says a multi-pronged approach is needed to curb the behaviour of motorsport enthusiasts.

He says it should make the ACT Government think carefully about building a dragway in Canberra.

"A legal dragway is just part of the mix," he said.

"There is no way that if we do not set up the dragway correctly, there is no way we will shift all the illegal street racing off the public roads and instead we may just encourage more of it."

Which sounded like a bad bit of reporting to me, so I Googled for the research and found:

http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/news/ill...eetracing.html

Motorsport revs-up illegal street racing interest

Involvement in motorsport and legal dragways had a direct impact on illegal street racing, University of New South Wales researchers announced recently.

Research conducted by James Warn, Paul Tranter and Simon Kingham suggested sensation-seeking young males often duplicated behaviour observed at motorsport events.

“There is a popular assumption that illegal street racers will move to legal dragways and this would make the roads safer. However j ust opening a legal dragway may not automatically shift illegal street racing off the public roads. We need to know more about what factors would make this happen,” Dr Tranter said.

“If we do not do the right things, a legal dragway may simply increase interest in illegal street racing.”

“Watching motorsport may cause more interest in street racing and over a large time period an increase in illegal activity.”

After surveying 180 male Christchurch drivers aged under 25 years, Dr Warn found that an interest in motorsport equated to more relaxed attitudes towards speeding and dangerous driving.

“Results indicated involvement with motor sports had a negative impact on driving behaviour as motor sport is linked with increased risk-taking on public roads,” he said.

“Dragway environments heighten the level of excitement and this can encourage sensation-seekers to duplicate risky racing behaviour on public streets. Flashing lights and the visibility of showing-off and manufactured noise-making events increase the enthusiasm shown for the event.”

Dr Warn said more research is needed to determine the factors that can shift involvement from illegal street racing to a legal venue. Once in a controlled environment, users can be educated about driver behaviour and road safety on public roads.

The results from the joint research with University of Canterbury lecturer Dr Kingham were presented by Dr Warn at a recent Australasian Transport Research Forum.

Which was much more sensible. I've bolded what I consider the key paragraphs.

The research was not about Dragways = bad. They asked a bunch of questions - I don't know what they were - of 180 guys and the questions they asked revealed that for those 180, there was a correlation between "driving behaviour" and what would seem to be watching drag racing/motorsports.

The first line in the second quoted section makes it seem like they said that dragways lead to street racing but a (good) academic would never say that unless they did some sort of study where there was a way to compare street racing before and after a dragway. This research showed that people who went to the drags also were more likely to have a more "relaxed attitude towards speeding and dangerous driving".

In other words, bogans who go to the drags also don't mind speeding. (in the grand traditon of research: tell me something I didn't know).

[mizone]

There are statistics and research that can prove anything.

For example

http://entertainment.news.com.au/com...55Enbv,00.html

[Sir Revalot]

Facts? Facts are meaningless. They can be used to prove anything that's even remotely true!

[Steve_1]

Facts? Facts are meaningless. They can be used to prove anything that's even remotely true!

sounds like your quoting someone who's very wise.....

well, i use the term loosely enough.

[Sir Revalot]

I don't know about 'wise' but perhaps not completely naive...

[2ofdem]

I heard Convo Pros have a similar effect.

[kwottro]

I've said it once and I'll say it again : 93.47% of statistics are made up on the spot.

(But I think this figure has slightly changed upward since I last said it - What does this shift mean ?)

[Nitephyre]

After surveying 180 male Christchurch drivers aged under 25 years, Dr Warn found that an interest in motorsport equated to more relaxed attitudes towards speeding and dangerous driving.

Since when has Christchurch been in NSW? or Australia for that matter?

Relevence = SFA

(ps, i've always wanted a genuine set of dragways )

[Wobbler]

Christchurch drag strip aye.... very rarely are there actually meets held at ruapuna for drag racing. Christchurch roads are big wide and everyone sits above the speed limit. I bet if they interviewed 100 old people with hip replacements done they would all speed too.

Ban hip replacements I say.

[Jim]

it needs to be accessable by people, not elite and wealthy racing teams, that's the difference. Eastern creek off street is so packed out you get maybe 2 runs a night, so again it's inaccessable. If they ran it 2 or 3 nights a week it'd be a different story.

[Vicko]

If I was a Canberra resident, I reckon I'd be writing a polite letter to the ABC pointing out the discrepancies in reporting - maybe Media Watch would be interested in it also.

Talk about misreporting "research".

[tandy ass]

I heard that imposing speed limits encourages drivers to exceed them.

Ban speed limits.

[KanaL]

I can see exactly where they are coming from though. I've seen it first hand copious times.

I've been down to Calder more times than I can remember, and on the way home, alnog the Calder freeway, there are little datto utes and cordias driving their tits off down the emergency lane. The thing is, that both of these cars didn't compete during the night. They were spectator cars. Now, that's not to say I haven't seen competeing cars getting driven at 170km/h on the way home, I just think that the spectators seem to think that because they didnt pay their $55 (damn expensive for 3runs) that they have the right to race home in such a manner.

</i dont really know what any of this means>

[GTSBoy]

Yeah, when I had a set of Dragways on my Commodore, I used to street race all the time. I didn't know it was the wheels that made me do it.

[Billzilla]

I heard that imposing speed limits encourages drivers to exceed them.

Ban speed limits.

Nah, raise them to about 400 km/h. That way no-one can die of speeding.

[Morgs]

Thanks Saru for putting forward a good case as to the validity of the media.

[wazza]

it needs to be accessable by people, not elite and wealthy racing teams, that's the difference. Eastern creek off street is so packed out you get maybe 2 runs a night, so again it's inaccessable. If they ran it 2 or 3 nights a week it'd be a different story.

Ermmm, when was the last time you raced at WSID? Ive been twice, and 1st time even after getting there late i got 5 runs in, 2nd time got there nice and early and had done 8 runs by about 9:30..... Mates have also been, and the only time any of them have gotten just 2 runs in the night was when they didnt feel like racing any more (had run the time they wanted).

Also been and watched shitloads of times, and see plenty of cars out for 4 or 5 runs, and i normally dont show up to spectate until 7-7:30 (racing starts at 5 or something)

[Jim]

I havent been to WSID, only eastern creek race track, and it did suck. glad to hear WSID is better organised then!

[Grumpy Rooster]

I posted that originally in the other thread to show how things can be reported in any manner one likes.

The problem was I didn't have a chance to chase up the actual report like Saru did.

Thanks Saru.

[Saru]

I Googled for the ADFA researcher and asked him to send me the paper. Academic comraderie at it's finest.

It's 13 pages, including some statistics that is way over my head and a few references that I'd chase up if I wasn't busy writing my thesis. I may wander down the hall later today and visit the statisticans so I can quiz them about whether or not the stats in the paper show what the authors say they do.

The paper itself makes the claim (on my first reading) that "participation in motor sports"[0] makes young drivers (under 25) more likely to speed[1] and that "sensation seeking behaviour" is more likely to cause participation in street racing.

Here's the abstract:

Illegal street racing is receiving increased media attention but there is little research in
Australia and New Zealand to guide creative responses to this socially problematic behaviour.
The paper investigates the relationship between interest in motor sport, illegal street racing
and other risky driving behaviours amongst a sample of young male drivers in Christchurch.
The study obtained questionnaire data from students in late high school, polytechnic college
and university. The measured variables included a driving violations scale, attitudes to
speeding, sensation seeking propensity, level of interest in motor sport and participation in
illegal street racing. The results indicate that experience with motor sport was a significant
factor in the explanation of both risky driving behaviour and the level of involvement in
illegal street racing, taking into account the influence of sensation seeking. However, the way
in which motor sport was linked with risky driving was different from the way it was linked
with illegal street racing. Motor sport had a more direct influence on street racing, but
influenced risky driving behaviour through the influence on attitude to speeding. The street
racing group is characterised by high levels of sensation seeking and high levels of
involvement in motor sport.

Now, a bit of commentary from me:
I can't say I liked their methodology. I think they asked leading questions (or leading statements for participants to respond to). I think some of their questions would get similar responses from non-street racers and even people who weren't really interested in motor sports at all (eg: "I am a skillful driver" and "I am unlikely to ever be involved in a serious road accident"). However, it is pretty clear that this is a first paper for this research and perhaps they are paving the way for better/other studies.

It would seem their overall goal is to figure out what makes people street race and how to get them to stop doing it on public roads. I think most PFers would agree that would be a good thing.

However, they make some funny statements, such as

"The difficulty with shifting interest from motor sport is the passion that many young people (particularly males) direct towards their cars. Therefore, they are more likely to act out their desire for sensation seeking through their cars. The broader response to this requires deglorifying the car, and one way to do this is to ensure that motor sport events are never allowed to be staged in significant public spaces, as this signifies that such events are an accepted part of the culture of a city or society (Tranter and Keeffe, 2004)."

Which makes them come across as anti-car and anti-motorsport. (Tranter and Keeffe, 2004 is very anti-motorsport (on a surface level)). This "The broader response to this requires deglorifying the car," is clearly anti-car. This strikes me as preaching to the choir of anti-(performance)car people, greenies or rabid cyclists[2] and (deliberatly?) alienating the car community.

As well, they seem to believe the current driver safety campaign. They make occaisional references to people not heeding a number of safety messages such as "there's no such thing as safe speeding". (thus they are possibly of the same cloth as the Monash Accident Research Centre and the Professor from the ad with the two falcons that crash into the truck.)

In general, I find them to be overly critical of motor sports in their tone as well as the places they get their secondary materials from and the questions they ask in their research. I would like to see other research from them that identifies where motor sports should be undertaken and how to encourage people to participate to get it off the public streets - which is at least being thought about because this is what the researcher from the first paper wrote to me:

Good luck with keeping the enthusiasm for racing on the track. We are interested in further research identifying key strategies for making that happen.

So perhaps I'm overly critical.

[0] defined as watching it on TV, driving or riding in a motor sports event or being interested in motor sports. Pretty broadly, really.
[1] well, self report as speeding/taking "risky driving behaviours"
[2] The number of PFers and people on OzDrive who are regular cyclists would seem to me to show that car people are not anti-cycling (that would be an interesting study...)