This study examined the effects of age and driving experience on the ability to detect hazards while driving; namely, hazard perception. Studies have shown that young-inexperienced drivers are more likely than experienced drivers to suffer from hazard perception deficiencies. However, it remains to be determined if this skill deteriorates with advancing age. Twenty-one young-inexperienced, 19 experienced, and 16 elderly drivers viewed six hazard perception movies while connected to an eye tracking system and were requested to identify hazardous situations. Four movies embedded planned, highly hazardous, situations and the rest were used as control. Generally, experienced and older-experienced drivers were equally proficient at hazard detection and detected potentially hazardous events (e.g., approaching an intersection, pedestrians on curb) continuously whereas young-inexperienced drivers stopped reporting on hazards that followed planned, highly hazardous situations. Moreover, while approaching T intersections older and experienced drivers fixated more towards the merging road on the right while young-inexperienced drivers fixated straight ahead, paying less attention to potential vehicles on the merging road. The study suggests that driving experience improves drivers' awareness of potential hazards and guides drivers' eye movements to locations that might embed potential risks. Furthermore, advanced age hardly affects older drivers' ability to perceive hazards, and older drivers are at least partially aware of their age-related limitations.
This research assessed the impact of vehicle automation on a driver’s ability to anticipate latent threats and to detect materialized hazards on the forward roadway. In particular, the minimum alert time before transfer of control was determined. This was the minimum time required after an autonomous driving suite (ADS) had been in full control of a vehicle for the driver to reacquire the same level of situation awareness that he or she had when in full control of the vehicle. This simulator study included five treatment conditions during which drivers either were always in complete control of their own vehicle (control) or were required to resume control at 4 s, 6 s, 8 s, or 12 s before the appearance of a latent hazard (transfer). While the vehicle was in autonomous mode, the drivers performed an in-vehicle task for more than a minute and were told not to glance at the forward roadway. Analysis of eye movements showed that drivers in the control condition detected nearly 40% more hazards compared with drivers in the shortest transfer condition. The results indicated how long before control was transferred from the ADS back to a driver that the driver should be told that a transfer would occur, if the driver were to have full situation awareness. Unlike previous studies, this study both ensured that the driver was not watching for hazards while the ADS was in control and used a measure of situation awareness (hazard anticipation) that was closely linked to the actual understanding a driver had of the threats present in a given scenario.
Inclusion of an active-practical component generates an effective intervention. Using several evaluation measurements aids performance assessment process. Advantages of each of the training methodologies are discussed. Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Traffic Injury Prevention to view the supplemental file.
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