A Meta-Analysis of Driving Performance and Crash Risk Associated with the Use of Cellular Telephones While Driving

This paper addresses the effects of cell phones on driving by means of a review of the literature and an analysis of scientifically credible epidemiological and driver performance studies. A total of 84 articles were obtained covering the period from 1969 to 2004. Sixty-eight articles were research papers measuring driving performance while using a cell phone and 16 articles were epidemiological studies that examined cell phone usage and their relationship to vehicular crashes. Epidemiological findings consistently showed an increase in crashes associated with use of cell phones. However, these studies did not control for exposure to cell phone use or to driving. The negative impact of cell phone usage is larger for responses to critical events than for vehicular control. Drivers responded about a quarter of a second later to stimuli in the presence of a cell phone distractor for all studies that were analyzed. Hands-free cell phones produced similar performance decrements to hand-held phones

Driving Performance while Engaged in MP-3 Player Interaction: Effects of Practice and Task Difficulty on PRT and Eye Movements

The 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

The Effect of Time Constraints on Older and Younger Driver Decisions to Turn at Intersections Using a Modified Change Blindness Paradigm

After age 75, the risk of intersection accident involvement for older drivers increases for most intersection maneuvers. Failure to yield right-of-way and violation of traffic controls are common citations. Previous research has argued that age-related declines in attentional breadth and switching can discriminate between those who are and are not more likely to be in an accident. The present study examined the effect of time constraints on older and younger driver intersection decisions. It was expected that less time to decide, process and act upon intersection decisions would adversely affect older drivers more so than younger drivers. The change blindness or flicker paradigm was modified to address these questions (see, e.g., Rensink, et al., 1997). Typically, an image (A) is alternated with a modified image (A’) each for a short duration (250 ms) with a blank field or mask (80 ms) between A and A’. In the present study, a focus screen (or prime) that indicated the expected direction of travel (i.e., left, right, or straight) was added prior to the alternation of images. Forty-eight images were selected from 2500 intersection approaches in Calgary, Winnipeg and Montreal that were filmed using a digital camera during the day. Photoshop was used to create the A’ images by manipulating a variety of elements including pedestrians, vehicles, signs, and signals. The goal of the participant was to decide if the indicated direction of travel in the pair of intersection images was safe (press accelerator) or not (press brake). Sixteen younger (M = 22.3) and 16 older drivers (M = 73.6) drivers were screened for visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and medication use. Length of image alternation was the primary independent variable (4 and 8 s). As expected, older drivers were more likely to miss intersection changes at shorter exposure durations than younger drivers. A number of qualitative probes were also collected that clearly illustrate the contextual demands of intersections on attention. The implications of the results for intersection design and older driver selective attention are discussed

The Naturalistic Driver Model: Development, Integration, and Verification of Lane Change Maneuver, Driver Emergency and Impairment Modules

This report documents work conducted in order to support the development of a driver model. This work consisted of (i) a review of driver models for identifying the possibility to add some functionalities to the current model based on existing models and (ii) the data collection and analysis in order to describe the mechanism of distraction and potentially offer some quantification of its effect on drivers’ behavior and performance

The Naturalistic Driver Model: Development, Integration, and Verification of Lane Change Maneuver, Driver Emergency and Impairment Modules

The need for a drivers’ model that integrates a wider range of natural driver activities is important to the traffic engineering and human factors communities. Integration of real traffic behaviors into micro-simulations increases the accuracy and explanatory power of these models. For human factors engineers, improvements to driver modeling efforts provide a useful framework by which Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) can be evaluated for safety and mobility. This project includes a means to consider normal lane changing maneuver, driver support for emergency management and impaired driving. The overall objective is increasing the potential of the driver model by using three principle methods: modeling, experimental, and verification. Specifically, this portion of the project focus on the adaptation of the current implemented architecture for the simulation of impaired driving and address the simulation of emergency handling. The outcomes of this project are an improved simulation tool that can recreate many highway-driving situations with human behavior accurately integrated. It will also support Caltrans goal of vehicle safety by providing a better tool to simulate driver behavior and developing the body of knowledge about driver impairment and emergency driving. Keywords: Cognitive driver model, distraction, lane chang

A meta-analysis of the effects of texting on driving

AbstractText messaging while driving is considered dangerous and known to produce injuries and fatalities. However, the effects of text messaging on driving performance have not been synthesized or summarily estimated. All available experimental studies that measured the effects of text messaging on driving were identified through database searches using variants of “driving” and “texting” without restriction on year of publication through March 2014. Of the 1476 abstracts reviewed, 82 met general inclusion criteria. Of these, 28 studies were found to sufficiently compare reading or typing text messages while driving with a control or baseline condition. Independent variables (text-messaging tasks) were coded as typing, reading, or a combination of both. Dependent variables included eye movements, stimulus detection, reaction time, collisions, lane positioning, speed and headway. Statistics were extracted from studies to compute effect sizes (rc). A total sample of 977 participants from 28 experimental studies yielded 234 effect size estimates of the relationships among independent and dependent variables. Typing and reading text messages while driving adversely affected eye movements, stimulus detection, reaction time, collisions, lane positioning, speed and headway. Typing text messages alone produced similar decrements as typing and reading, whereas reading alone had smaller decrements over fewer dependent variables. Typing and reading text messages affects drivers’ capability to adequately direct attention to the roadway, respond to important traffic events, control a vehicle within a lane and maintain speed and headway. This meta-analysis provides convergent evidence that texting compromises the safety of the driver, passengers and other road users. Combined efforts, including legislation, enforcement, blocking technologies, parent modeling, social media, social norms and education, will be required to prevent continued deaths and injuries from texting and driving

How science informs engineering, education, and enforcement: A message for driving instructors

The aim of this chapter is to illustrate to driving instructors how science contributes to cumulative knowledge on road safety. We do this by reviewing a scientific study for each of the three classical Es of road safety: (1) education, (2) enforcement, and (3) engineering.Regarding education, we review the DeKalb experiment from the 1980s, which was a largesample randomized controlled trial that studied the effect of driver education on postlicense crash rates. The DeKalb experiment showed that participants who were assigned to a state-of-the-art driver education program performed better on theory and road tests, and became licensed sooner than control participants who did not receive formal driving instruction. Although the state-of-the-art education improved these target outcomes, there is no consistent evidence that it reduced crash risk. The recent consensus is that theoretical knowledge and skillful maneuvering alone are not sufficient for safe driving. Drivers should also have postlicense on-road experience and the lifestyle and attitudes that contribute to a safe driving style.Regarding enforcement, we describe a UK study from the late 1990s on the statistical reliability of the formal road test. In this study, driving test candidates were asked to retake the test with a different examiner. The results showed surprisingly low consistency between the two tests, indicating that an assessment of a 30-minute drive might not be trustworthy. We provide several recommendations (such as increasing the test duration and implementing standardized routes and checklists) for improving the reliability of road testing. Furthermore, the value of computerized testing (e.g., hazard perception testing) and long-term data collection (e.g., in-vehicle driver state monitoring) is addressed.Regarding engineering, the growing prevalence of active safety systems in vehicles has raised the question of how to treat such technologies in driver education curricula. A study on electronic stability control (ESC) was reviewed to illustrate how advances in technology improve road safety and affect elements of on-road training. In the case of ESC, skid training has become less relevant, but it is unknown whether learner drivers should experience critical driving situations during which the ESC gets activated. This may foster their overconfidence

Effectiveness of an injury prevention video on risky behaviours in youth snow sports: A randomized controlled trial

Objectives: Ski and snowboard-related injuries are common among Canadian youth. Analyzing the role of risky behaviours that contribute to injury risk is essential for gaining an understanding of injury prevention opportunities. The objective was to determine if rates of risky behaviour seen at the ski hill were lower for children and adolescents exposed to an educational injury prevention video. Methods: This single-blinded cluster randomized controlled trial included students (ages 7-16) from 18 Calgary schools who were enrolled in novice levelled school-sanctioned ski and snowboard programs. Consenting schools were randomly assigned to the intervention or control. The control group followed standard preparation including watching a general ski hill orientation video that was created by the ski hill. The intervention group viewed the intervention video focussed on injury prevention. The Risky Behaviour and Actions Assessment Tool was used by blinded research assistants to observe and record students\u27 risky behaviours at an Alberta ski hill. Results: In total, 407 observations estimated the rate of risky behaviour. The overall rate of risky behaviour was 23.31/100 person runs in the control group and 22.95/100 person runs in the intervention group. The most commonly observed risky behaviours in both groups were skiing too close to other skiers/snowboarders and near collision with an object/person. Conclusions: Both groups showed similar rates of risky behaviour and demonstrated the same most common type of behaviour. Practical applications: future work should focus on mitigating common risky behaviours

Expert evaluation of traffic signs:conventional vs. alternative designs

Traffic sign comprehension is significantly affected by their compliance with ergonomics design principles. Despite the UN Convention, designs vary among countries. The goal of this study was to establish theoretical and methodological bases for evaluating the design of conventional and alternative signs. Thirty-one conventional signs and 1-3 alternatives for each conventional sign were evaluated for their compliance with three ergonomics guidelines for sign design: physical and conceptual compatibility, familiarity, and standardization. Twenty-seven human factors and ergonomics experts from ten countries evaluated the signs relative to their compliance with the guidelines. Analysis of variance across alternatives revealed that for 19 of the 31 signs, an alternative design received a significantly higher rating in its ergonomics design than the conventional sign with the same meaning. We also found a very high correlation between the experts' ratings and comprehension from previous studies. In conclusion, many countries use signs for which better alternative designs exist, and therefore UN Convention signs should be re-examined, and ergonomics experts evaluation can serve as a good surrogate for road users' comprehension surveys