Drivers overtaking cyclists in the real-world: Evidence from a naturalistic driving study

How much space do drivers provide when passing cyclists? Understanding the impact of motor vehicle and infrastructure characteristics on passing distance

“…Prior studies of passing distance have typically been conducted using a single instrumented bicycle on a set route, [10][11][12][13] using data collected only on a single cyclist, 14 or have used a limited number of fixed traffic cameras to estimate passing distance, 15 thus limiting the generalisability of these findings. Naturalistic driving studies have also been used to study the lateral distance that vehicles provide when passing cyclists, but have been limited to a small number of passing events, 16 or have used surrogate measures of passing distance, such as the distance to the bicycle lane marking, rather than quantifying lateral passing distance. 17 Using a device that can be fitted to any bicycle and enabling cyclists to self-select their route may alleviate some of the limitations of prior studies.…”

Modeling Drivers’ Strategy When Overtaking Cyclists in the Presence of Oncoming Traffic

“…Cyclist overtaking maneuvers can be split into four phases [6], [27], [30], which may help to prioritize and develop safety systems that support the driver in reducing crash risks in those phases: 1) approaching phase: when the ego vehicle approaches the cyclist, and the driver has to decide between a flying or an accelerative maneuver, 2) steering away phase: when the driver steers away to achieve a lateral distance to the cyclist, 3) passing phase: when the ego vehicle passes the cyclist while driving in parallel, 4) returning phase: when the driver has passed the cyclist and steers back into the lane. Several recent studies investigated driver behavior in these phases by leveraging different test environments: simulator studies [31], [32], test-track studies [30], [33], field test studies [27] and naturalistic driving studies [6], [34]- [36]. While simulator and test-track studies have lower ecological validity than field tests or naturalistic driving studies, they can offer more controlled data with higher resolution, which facilitates the development of predictive driver models [5].…”

“…In this study, we assumed that the limited set of participants who took part in our experiment was representative of the driving population. This may not be the case as driver behavior can greatly vary between different regions and individuals [52], especially when taking exposure to cyclistovertaking maneuvers into account [6]. To better understand how well our model can represent driver behavior close to the boundary of their comfort zone, data from more critical maneuvers are needed.…”

“…Overtaking is a complex maneuver, where each of the overtaking phases poses the driver at risk of different types of collisions with either the cyclist or the oncoming traffic [6], [27], [30]. This paper focused on the approaching phase and the risk of rear-ending the cyclist or heading-on the oncoming vehicle as a driver choose the overtaking strategy.…”

“…crossing [5] or during an overtaking [6], respectively. Sideimpact scenarios dominate crash prevalence on urban roads, while rear-end crashes account for more severe injuries and fatalities on rural roads [7], [8].…”