Effects of hazard types on drivers’ risk rating and hazard response in a video-based hazard perception task

Abstract

Hazard perception is crucial for identifying potential hazards on the road, and how quick drivers can respond to the hazard partially relies on their risk rating of the hazard after they detect it. Although many studies have attempted to reveal the relationship between drivers’ response latencies and their risk ratings, this relationship has not been extensively explored under different hazard types. The present study addresses this issue using a video-based hazard perception task. Forty novice drivers and 35 experienced drivers were recruited and 26 video clips containing either an overt hazard (continuous visibility) or a covert hazard (interrupted visibility) were shown to participants. Participants were asked to finish the hazard perception task first and then rated the risk level of the hazard when each video clip was replayed. Participants’ confidence in their answers for risk ratings was also determined. Results showed that experienced drivers responded to overt and covert hazards faster than did novice drivers. A negative and significant correlation was found between drivers’ risk ratings of covert hazards and their response latencies. Such a relationship was not found for overt hazards. More importantly, drivers rated the risk level of covert hazards higher than that of overt hazards, and higher risk ratings of covert hazards resulted in faster responses to these hazards. The findings of the present study indicate that hazard types not only influence drivers’ risk ratings and response latencies but also determine their relationships.

Effects of hazard type and confidence level on hazard perception in young male drivers: an ERP study

“…Moreover, the drivers’ response time to hazard was significantly shorter than that to no hazard, indicating that it was more difficult for participants to evaluate no hazard situations. It is possible that the images do not contain any anticipatory cues and might need additional cognitive resources to search for hazards [24]. Another possible explanation is that drivers might expect hazards in all video clips, but they were not told that half of the clips contained no hazards.…”

“…One hundred twenty images (Fig. 1) captured from a hazard perception test [24] were evaluated by two traffic psychology experts. Sixty images contained hazards (in the current traffic situation, drivers had to slow down or change driving lanes to avoid collisions), and 60 images contained no hazards (in the current traffic situation, drivers kept driving activities and did not need to change driving lanes).…”

Development and validity of a hazard prediction test for Chinese drivers

“…Each clip included only one slowly developing hazard under varying circumstances situations (see Appendix B for a description of each clip). The appearance time and location of the hazard in each clip were random from one clip to another the hazard triggers in the video clips included cars, motorcycles, cyclists, road work and pedestrians, with the clip length ranging from 10 s to 16 s. The test demonstrated acceptable reliability in previous studies and effectively discriminated between the different driver groups with varied driving experience [ 28 , 29 ].…”

Analysis of hazard perception characteristics based on driving behavior considering overt and covert hazard scenarios

“…And 43% of drivers were overspeeding in the covert hazard scenarios. It indicates that drivers perceive a higher risk in covert hazard scenarios [45], which is a greater threat to driving safety. Indeed, the number of cases of collisions in overt hazard scenarios (1.9%) is found to be less than that in covert hazard scenarios (18.1%) through the analysis of collision accidents.…”