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Time-to-Arrival and Useful Field of View: Associations with Reported Driving Difficulties Among Older Adults
No full textThe purpose of this study was to determine self-reported driving difficulties related to time-to-arrival (TTA) and/or useful field of view (UFOV), to identify associations between TTA and UFOV, and to compare the TTA estimated accuracy between different vehicle speed approaches. Thirty-eight male and female active drivers ages 61 to 81 years (70,2 ± 5,0 years) participated in this study. The UFOV® test was applied. TTA was studied with a removal paradigm, using two vehicle speeds (50 and 70km/h) for data collection. A driving habits questionnaire was administered, including items concerning driving difficulties. Results showed that lower performances in divided attention (subtest 2 of UFOV®) were significantly associated with reported difficulties in hightraffic intersections, trouble seeing the signs in time to respond to them, and problems judging the speed or distance of an approaching vehicle. Concerning TTA, greater response bias and/or greater response inconsistency were significantly associated with difficulties in overtaking other cars, difficulties seeing the signs in time to react to them, difficulties in the speed or distance perception of an oncoming vehicle. Low associations were found between UFOV and TTA measures. TTA estimated accuracy increased when the vehicle traveled at higher speeds. We concluded that both TTA and UFOV seem to be important measures to identify driving difficulties in older adults. The TTA could be relevant in measuring specific aspects of visual information processing in addition to other instruments like UFOV®
Weight Semi Hidden Markov Model and Driving Situation Classification for Driver Behavior Diagnostic
No full textIn this study, we propose to use statistical modelling to analyze, model, and categorize driving activity. To achieve this objective, we develop a new statistical model by adding a weight feature to the classic Semi Hidden Markov Model (SHMM) framework. Then, to assess its capacity, we conduct an experiment that allows us to record 718 driving sequences categorized in 36 situations. We then used our modelling to identify the driver's aim and the driving situation he's in. Furthermore, we adapted the ascendant hierarchic classification technique to this modelling. It allows us to understand which situations are close and to define partitions of whole driving situations. Finally, on these sequences, our modelling choice allows us to predict the driver’s situation with, on average, an 85% success rate. These results show the HMM effectiveness to manage temporal and multidimensional data by modelling predicting drivers’ behavior
Assessing Driver Fatigue as a Factor in Road Accidents
Get PDFFatigue is one of the most pervasive yet under-investigated causes of human-error-related driving accidents, incidents, and injuries. Several studies suggest that 25-30% of driving accidents are fatigue related (Horne et al., 1995). However, government reports estimate that only 1-4% of crashes may be attributable to the driver falling asleep or being drowsy, based largely on data derived from police reports recorded at these accidents (Cummings et al., 2001). The reason for this wide disparity is that there is no simple tool or objective way for investigators to collect the (right) data needed to correlate accidents with fatigue. To bridge this gap, a diagnostic survey instrument was developed, along with a weighted risk model based on Fuzzy Scalable Monotonic Chaining (FSMC), to help investigators readily determine (by standardized criteria and with high probability) the role of fatigue as a causal factor in driving accidents
Assessment of Hazard Perception Latencies Using Real Life and Animated Traffic Hazards: Comparison of Novice and Experienced Drivers
Get PDFHigh accident risk of novice and inexperienced drivers is associated with their poor hazard perception ability. In past studies, hazard perception latencies (reaction time) were measured using hazards in simulated traffic environments, scenario-based video clips, or photographs, but rarely with real-life traffic situations. We developed two different measures to assess hazard perception ability (1) video clips of hazards recorded in real-life traffic settings and (2) the video clips of animated hazards. We compared these two measures in terms of their power in discriminating between novice and experienced drivers. Novice (N= 43) and experienced drivers (N = 65) were admisistered computerbased Turkish Hazard Perception Tests consisting of 40 real traffic and animated video clips of hazards. Results revealed that although experienced drivers detected the hazards relatively earlier than the novices on average, the difference between the groups was not statistically significant for both real-traffic and video clips. Examination of the group differences on each item suggested video clips reflecting actual traffic situations discriminate novice and experienced drivers better than animated clips. Content analyses of the clips that significantly discriminated groups revealed that novice drivers have difficulty in detecting hazards resulting from an unexpected or suddent violation of road users. It seemed that lack of experience in anticipating the other road users’ violations creates a critical vulnerability for the safety of novice drivers
Examining Young Novice Driver Headway Choice in a Simulated Car Following Task
Get PDFDespite the high incidence of rear-end crashes relative to other crash types among young novice drivers, research examining the car following practices of young novice drivers compared with experienced drivers has been limited. Further, little is understood about the impact of initial following distance—that is, following distance at the commencement of a car following episode—on the final headway adopted. The objective of the current study was to compare systematically the headway choice of a group of 30 young novice drivers with a group of 30 experienced drivers using a car following task that was developed for use in a driving simulator. An important feature of this study was the manipulation of initial following distance. This enabled exploration of how initial headway influences the final headway adopted by each of the novice and experienced groups. The results showed that the young novice drivers in the current study chose to travel at shorter final headways overall than their more experienced counterparts. Furthermore, while initial following distance impacted on the final following distance adopted overall, the novices did not adjust to incremental variations in initial following distance in the same manner as the experienced drivers. The implications of these findings for understanding the mechanisms underlying the headway choices of novice as opposed to experienced drivers are briefly discussed
Passenger Age and Gender Effects on Adult Driver Fatal Crash Rate
No full textDriver behavior and crash rates vary with the presence of passengers but the details of this relationship are not well understood. The literature generally does not take into account the characteristics of passengers, yet effects on crashes may vary dramatically with passenger age and gender. This study estimated the amount of exposure (driving miles) done by various driver age/gender categories with various combinations of passengers. Statistical imputation techniques were used to derive travel estimates for various pairings using data from the 2001 National Household Travel Survey. Crash frequencies for every pairing were obtained from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and were used to compute fatal crash rates (per 10 million trip miles). The findings reported here focus on adult (21 and older) drivers. The results show that drivers of a given type (age/gender group) show dramatically different crash rates as a function of passenger type. Some passenger types are associated with fatal crash rates higher than that with no passenger, while other passenger types are associated with lower crash rates. The details of this relationship depend to some degree on driver characteristics. Crash rates for different driver age/gender groups overlap substantially based on the passenger, so that the “best” and “worst” driver groups are passenger-specific. For adult male drivers, female passengers are generally associated with lower crash rates. For male drivers, there is a higher crash rate with a male passenger of a given age than with a female passenger of the same age, even for child passengers
Driver's Behavior and Workload Assessment for New In-Vehicle Technologies Design
No full textInnovative technology can induce improvement in road safety, as long as its acceptability and its adequacy are checked, taking into account the diversified driver’s population needs and functional abilities through a Human Centred Design process. Relevant methodology has to be developed in this purpose. Evaluation of the driver’s mental workload is an important parameter, complementary to objective ones such as control of the vehicle and driver’s visual strategies. This paper describes experiments conducted in the framework of the European project AIDE aiming at validating the DALI (Driving Activity Load Index), a tool set up to allow evaluation of mental workload while using in-vehicle systems; the main results and conclusion from this approach are presented
Driving Performance while Engaged in MP-3 Player Interaction: Effects of Practice and Task Difficulty on PRT and Eye Movements
Get PDFThe purpose of this study was to examine the effects of iPod interactions on driver performance over several sessions to determine the distraction effect of iPods on driver performance, as well as to see if performance decrements declined with practice. Nineteen younger drivers (mean age = 19.4, range 18 to 22) participated in a seven-session study in the University of Calgary Driving Simulator. Drivers encountered a number of critical events such as pedestrian incursions, lead vehicle braking, and pullout vehicle events, on the roadways. These events were encountered both while driving alone and when performing iPod tasks of varying difficulty. Participants’ hazard response, frequency of collisions and eye movement measures were examined to determine if there were any changes in performance related to iPod distraction and practice effects. Increases in perception response time (PRT) and frequency of collisions were found during the difficult iPod interactions. The number and duration of glances made into the vehicle increased significantly while performing the difficult iPod interactions, reducing the number of glances made to the roadway. Over the course of the sessions, performance improved significantly in all secondary task conditions, but performance decrements still remained in the difficult iPod condition compared to the baseline
Naturalistic Driving Performance During Secondary Tasks
No full textData from 36 drivers involved in a naturalistic driving study was analyzed to determine the frequency and conditions under which drivers engage in secondary behaviors and to explore the relationship these behaviors might have with driving performance. Researchers coded 1,440 five-second video clips of the drivers’ faces for the occurrence of specific secondary behaviors and the duration of glances away from the forward scene. Corresponding performance data from the instrumented vehicles were used to calculate variability of steering angle, mean and variability of lane position, mean and variability of throttle position, and variability of speed. All categories of secondary behavior were associated with significantly higher variability in steering angle. The results for other performance measures were mixed. In summary; driving performance measures vary with differing tasks, with no single driving performance indicator that is obviously predictive of drivers’ engagement in secondary tasks
Predicting Driver Safety in Parkinson’s Disease: An Interim Report of an Ongoing Longitudinal Study
Get PDFThis article summarizes the baseline results of an ongoing longitudinal, NIH-funded study on prediction of driver safety in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Patients with even mild to moderate PD who drive and live independently suffer from visual and cognitive dysfunction, which appear to be the main contributors to decreased driving performance and safety, rather than the motor dysfunction for which PD is known