Errors by road users are not all the same. People often get fixated on the ‘deliberate violations’ category of error, but there are also slips, lapses, mistakes:
- Slips: Actions not carried out as intended or planned, e.g. misreading the road signs and exiting from a roundabout on the wrong road.
- Lapses: Missed actions or omissions. Failure to perform an intended action or forgetting the next action in a sequence (including inattention). Eg. Missing a stop sign or red light
- Mistakes: Wrong actions carried out due to a faulty plan or action, i.e. someone believing something to be correct when it was, in fact, wrong.
- Deliberate violations: Deliberate illegal actions, i.e. somebody doing something knowing it to be against the rules.
Content (adapted from ITF 2016)