729 research outputs found
Sort by
Ascertainment of On-Road Safety Errors Based on Video Review
Get PDFUsing an instrumented vehicle, we have studied several aspects of the on-road performance of healthy and diseased elderly drivers. One goal from such studies is to ascertain the type and frequency of driving safety errors. Because the judgment of such errors is somewhat subjective, we applied a taxonomy system of 15 general safety error categories and 76 specific safety error types. We also employed and trained professional driving instructors to review the video data of the on-road drives. In this report, we illustrate our rating system on a group of 111 drivers, ages 65 to 89. These drivers made errors in 13 of the 15 error categories, comprising 42 of the 76 error types. A mean (SD) of 35.8 (12.8) safety errors per drive were noted, with 2.1 (1.7) of them being judged as serious. Our methodology may be useful in applications such as intervention studies, and in longitudinal studies of changes in driving abilities in patients with declining cognitive ability
Comparing the Gap Acceptance and Turn Time Patterns of Novice With Experienced Drivers for Turns Across Traffic
Get PDFNovice drivers are over-represented in crashes involving turns across traffic at intersections and yet little is understood about the contributing factors. The current study proposed to explore the gap acceptance and turn time patterns of novice relative to experienced drivers when turning across traffic. Thirty novice and 30 experienced drivers each carried out a series of trials in a driving simulator that varied in their level of task demand – operationalised in terms of the gap between two successive oncoming vehicles. The novices accepted more gaps than the experienced drivers, although this effect was restricted to gaps falling within the decision “dilemma zone” (higher task demand). Examination of the turn time components for the accepted and, where appropriate, the rejected gaps, revealed that the performance of the novice drivers, in contrast with that of the experienced drivers, was not consistent with the changing task demands. These findings are interpreted in the context of differences between novice and experienced drivers’ calibration skill – that is, the ability to match task demands to one’s driving capabilities
Prediction of Driving Ability in People With Dementia- and Non- Dementia-Related Brain Disorders
Get PDFBrain disorders can impair physical and cognitive functions necessary for safe driving. Two hundred people with brain disorders referred for a driving assessment were recruited and their performance on a computerized battery of sensory-motor and cognitive tests (SMCTests) and a blinded on-road assessment determined. Based on SMCTests performance, binary logistic regression (BLR) and nonlinear causal resource analysis (NCRA) models classified on-road pass or fail with 70% accuracy. Greater accuracy could be achieved by splitting referrals into two groups: (1) Dementia and (2) Non-dementia-related brain disorders. BLR models classified on-road driving outcome as pass or fail with accuracies of 76% (Dementia) and 75% (Non-dementia), while NCRA models had accuracies of 77% (Dementia) and 80% (Non-dementia). Measures of attention were most critical for predicting driving ability in the dementia group. In the non-dementia group, prediction of driving ability was most accurate with assessment of a broader range of sensory-motor and cognitive functions. Compared to BLR, NCRA was able to identify and use additional measures to improve accuracy. NCRA is also better able to accommodate outliers due to it being a non-linear modelling method based upon individual performance-limiting impairments. We propose three main factors underlying sub-optimal prediction of driving ability based on SMCTests performance: (1) there are one or more functions important for driving ability which are not currently assessed with SMCTests – these could be sensory-motor or cognitive or other (e.g., attitude, confidence, insight, road code knowledge); (2) suboptimal classification/prediction techniques or models; or (3) inaccuracies in the on-road driving assessments
Changing Driver Behavior Through Unconscious Stereotype Activation
Get PDFUnder the guise of evaluating a head-up display in a driving simulator, participants completed scrambled sentence tasks (while waiting at stop signs) designed to prime either an elderly or teenage stereotype. Driving speeds between stop signs in the Stereotype conditions were compared to Control conditions in which age non-specific words were substituted for stereotyped words. Participants had a lower maximum speed in the Elderly Stereotype condition and a higher maximum speed in the Teenage condition (as compared to controls). These effects were obtained even though the participants were completely unaware of the themes in the experimental conditions. For both stereotypes, the change in behavior occurred relatively quickly: a significant effect on driving speed was observed after only five stops. These findings indicate that it may be possible to reduce the incidence of dangerous driving behavior through the use of unconscious priming
Multiple Exposition to a Driving Simulator Reduces Simulator Symptoms for Elderly Drivers
Get PDFThis study examines how older drivers responded to repeated exposures to a driver simulator. Older active and fit drivers participated in 5 simulator sessions within a 14-day period. For each session, simulator sickness symptoms were measured with the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire at baseline and post-session. In addition, participants completed a 10-cm visual analog scale (0= no symptom, 10= mild nausea) at baseline and after a familiarization scenario and post-session. Overall, older adults adapted to the driving simulator and by the fourth session, they showed no difference in sickness scores between the baseline and the post-session measurements. Increasing the exposure duration at session 5 yielded an increase in the sickness symptoms. These results suggest that shorterduration multiple exposures could reduce simulator sickness symptoms in elderly drivers and allow a more effective use of simulators for training by preventing early withdrawal of participants
Modeling the Behavior of Novice Young Drivers Using Data from In- Vehicle Data Recorders
Get PDFNovice young drivers suffer from increased crash risk that translates into over-representation in road injuries. A better understanding of the driving behavior of novice young drivers and of their determinants is needed to tackle this problem. To this extent, this study analyzes the behavior of novice young drivers within a Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) program. Data on driving behavior of novice drivers and their parents is collected using in-vehicle data recorders, which calculate compound risk indices as measures of the risk taking behavior of the various drivers. Data is used to estimate a negative binomial model to identify the major factors that affect the driving behavior of the young drivers. Estimation results suggest that the risk taking behavior of young drivers is influenced by that of their parents and decreases with higher levels of supervised driving and stricter monitoring by the parents
Can Low Cost Road Engineering Measures Combat Driver Fatigue? A Driving Simulator Investigation
Get PDFDriver fatigue is a major cause of road accidents, accounting for over 20% of serious accidents on motorways and monotonous roads in the U.K. This study investigated the potential for low-cost, road-based, engineering measures to act as alerting features in an otherwise monotonous driving environment and hence combat fatigue. Thirty-three drivers took part in the driving simulator study. There was some evidence of an alerting effect provided to drivers by all three of the treatments tested: chevron road-surface markings, transversecarriageway rumble strips and variable message signs. However, the alerting effect did appear to be relatively weak and potentially quite short-lived. Nevertheless, there may well be potential for any of the novel alerts to be deployed in the field in a known fatigue-related accident area
Development of a System to Study the Impact of Headlight Glare in a Driving Simulator
Get PDFWe report on the development of a realistic dynamic simulation of oncoming headlamp glare in a driving simulator. To our knowledge, no such simulation had been attempted or achieved previously. The simulation is based on superposition of a bright LED display through a beam splitter on the simulator screen and synchronizing the illuminated LED position to the image of the simulated oncoming car. LED brightness is adjusted to result in the level of light that such headlights would cause in the driver’s eyes, enabling the testing of glare effect on drivers of different ages and impact (reduction or increase) of various vision devices
Hard Braking Events Among Novice Teenage Drivers By Passenger Characteristics
Get PDFIn a naturalistic study of teenage drivers (N = 42) hard braking events of <-0.45 g were assessed over the first 6 months of licensure. A total of 1,721 hard braking events were recorded. The video footage of a sample (816) of these events was examined to evaluate validity and reasons for hard braking. Of these, 788 (96.6%) were estimated valid, of which 79.1% were due to driver misjudgment, 10.8% to risky driving behavior, 5.3% to legitimate evasive maneuvers, and 4.8% to distraction. Hard braking events per 10 trips and per 100 miles were compared across passenger characteristics. Hard braking rates per 10 trips among newly licensed teenagers during the first 6 months of licensure were significantly higher when driving with teen passengers and lower with adult passengers than driving alone; rates per 100 miles were lower with adult passengers than with no passengers. Further examination of the results indicates that rates of hard braking with teenage passengers were significantly higher compared with no passengers: 1) for male drivers; 2) during the first month of licensure. The data suggest that that novice teenage driving performance may not be as good or safe when driving alone or with teenage passengers than with adult passengers and provide support for the hypothesis that teenage passengers increase driving risks, particularly during the first month of licensure
Quantifying the Subjective Brightness of Retroreflective Material Using Magnitude Estimations
Get PDFTen small patches of retroreflective material were evaluated using a method of magnitude estimation to quantify the effect of changing the coefficient of retroreflection (RA) on brightness perception. Seventeen undergraduates participated. The results show that brightness is tightly linked with RA. Brightness was influenced more by changes in lower RA than changes in higher RA and follows Steven’s power law for brightness. Practical and theoretical implications are discusse