IAM embarrasses itself again with shonky research

The Institute of Advanced Motorists should stick to doing what it does most excellently: teaching people how to drive awesomely. It should stop doing poorly conducted and contradictory research.

The latest embarrassment for the IAM is new research outlining what most takes our eyes off the road. We know (and it’s obvious) that if something takes our eyes off the road, then it distracts us – it means we are not paying attention while driving. However, a couple of weeks ago, the IAM released some research that said that only 40% of drivers drive distracted. We contested this because it was blatantly untrue (the research methods were flawed from the start by just ‘asking’ people if they drove distracted, so this is more a survey about honesty than driving habits).

Again, IAM’s statistical analysis is left wanting. While 1447 respondents were polled throughout the UK (which would give a margin of error rate of around 3%), there were 10 separate regions which gives less than 150 people per region. Therefore the regional stats quoted could be out by as much as 8-9%.

Indeed, these most recent figures seem to indicate that of the 1447 drivers that were surveyed, all of them (100%) admitted to one or more of the distractions. And if they didn’t, then the survey size is even smaller. If it really was 4 in 10 people that drive distracted, Vision Critical, who helped conduct the survey would have only found 40% of the 1447 people could answer, meaning around 580 people would have been distracted and everyone else would have poked them and said, “Oi. I don’t drive distracted.”

What should you take from this survey

If you want to drive safely, get a vasectomy in your teens, don’t smoke, don’t listen to music in the car, eschew a cellphone, never carry passengers, navigate using the magnetic lines of the earth, and make sure that you find no one else attractive however buff from the gym/voluptuously buxom and scantily clad they are when walking down the road. Or you could ride a motorbike with the kind of blinkers the Amish make their horses wear.

The basic message is that, as the Doors said in Roadhouse Blues, you should keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.

Please, IAM, either start doing meaningful research, or stick to what you are excellent at.

Here are the results of the survey:

Age and gender breakdown

	18-24	25-34	35-44	45-54	55-64	65+	Male	Female
Looking at the view	23	29	30	35	34	36	32	32
Children in the car	23	32	41	31	25	21	27	33
Changing the radio channel	34	21	32	25	28	25	25	28
Backseat drivers	18	22	21	27	29	36	27	26
Mobile phone calls	21	27	24	23	23	20	26	21
Sat Nav	13	16	14	15	16	13	15	14
Attractive pedestrians, drivers or passengers	16	16	11	21	11	9	24	3
Adverts and shop fronts	21	13	12	8	14	9	10	14
Texts and social media updates	23	17	10	8	8	5	12	9
Lighting up a cigarette	7	6	5	6	9	3	6	6
Digital dashboard	8	5	3	5	7	6	4	7
Cuddling or kissing by a passenger	6	5	2	1	0	1	3	1