No abstract

The effects of eight in-vehicle tasks on driver distraction were measured in a large, moving-base driving simulator. Forty-eight adults, ranging in age from 35 to 66, and 15 teenagers participated in the simulated drive. Hand-held and hands-free versions of phone dialing, voicemail retrieval, and incoming calls represented six of the eight tasks. Manual radio tuning and climate control adjustment were also included to allow comparison with tasks that have traditionally been present in vehicles. During the drive the participants were asked to respond to sudden movements in surrounding traffic. The driver’s ability to detect these sudden movements or events changed with the nature of the in-vehicle tasks that were being performed. Driving performance measures such as lane violations and heading error were also computed. The performance of the adult group was compared with the performance of the teenage drivers. Compared with the adults, the teens were found to choose unsafe following distances, have poor vehicle control skills, and be more prone to distraction from hand-held phone tasks.

No abstract

No abstract

(212 words OK)Objective: To explore how a single master alarm system affects drivers' responses when compared to multiple, distinct warnings. Background: Advanced driver warning systems are intended to improve safety, yet inappropriate integration may increase the complexity of driving, especially in high workload situations. This study investigated the effects of auditory alarm scheme, reliability, and collision event-type on driver performance. Method: A 2x2x4 mixed factorial design investigated the impact of two alarm schemes (master vs. individual) and two levels of alarm reliability (high and low) on distracted drivers' performance across four collision event-types (frontal collision warnings, left and right lane departure warnings, and followvehicle fast approach). Results: Participants' reaction times and accuracy rates were significantly affected by the type of collision event and alarm reliability. The use of individual alarms, rather than a single master alarm, did not significantly affect driving performance in terms of reaction time or response accuracy. Conclusion: Even though a master alarm is a relatively uninformative warning, it produced statistically no different reaction times or accuracy results when compared to information-rich auditory icons, some of which were spatially located. In addition, unreliable alarms negatively impacted driver performance, regardless of event type or alarm scheme.Application: These results have important implications for the development and implementation of multiple driver warning systems.