Improving attention and emotional regulation skills in driver education with mindfulness concepts and practices

Novice drivers experience an unacceptably high rate of traffic crashes, especially in their first months of driving. While this is the result of multiple factors, three stand out. These are lack of experience, inability to pay attention properly and undeveloped emotional intelligence. Some state regulating agencies are responding to driver inexperience initiating Graduated Licensing Programs that limit when new drivers can drive and requiring more behind-the-wheel practice with a responsible adult before full licensure is granted. These measures seek to provide experience to novice drivers under safe conditions. The other factors, undeveloped attentional skills and lack of emotional regulation, have not been systematically addressed. These omissions put the novice driver on the road unprepared to drive safely. An answer to this problem is to teach these skills through training in mindfulness.;Mindfulness meditation and cognitive mindfulness concepts and practices have been explored in several learning environments, notably patient health-care, K-12 classrooms and post-secondary education to train individuals in attentional skills and emotional regulation. Research and educational experience in mindfulness has shown that these important skills can be taught. By offering this training to the driver education student, we can directly address these factors at a time when these skills are needed the most. The novice driver who is more attentive and has developed emotional regulation is a safer driver. This training can reduce the unacceptably high crash statistics this population experiences.