Online video simulations as an effective way of teaching drivers new road rules

Within the 14 days leading up to a recent change of two give way rules in New Zealand, the website www.giveway.co.nz had more than 340,000 active visitors who used a give way training programme to prepare for the rule change. It was shared 16,000 times on Facebook and tweeted over 300 times. It was emailed around workplaces and posted on numerous online bulletin boards. Our approach complemented the New Zealand Transport Agency’s $1.2 million education campaign. This paper will present a descriptive analysis of the large data set we gathered in the backend database of the website, including the average percentage of correct answers overall (90%) and for each question, and average time it took the users to answer correctly overall (4.345s) and for each question. The paper will provide insights into the psychology of educating a very large number of drivers using an effective online interactive driver training resource, promoted predominantly via social media.