Hazard prediction discriminates between novice and experienced drivers

Abstract

Typical hazard perception tests often confound multiple processes in their responses. The current study tested hazard prediction in isolation to assess whether this component can discriminate between novice and experienced drivers. A variant of the hazard perception test, based on the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique, found experienced drivers to outperform novices across three experiments suggesting that the act of predicting an imminent hazard is a crucial part of the hazard-perception process. Furthermore three additional hypotheses were tested in these experiments. First, performance was compared across clips of different length. There was marginal evidence that novice drivers' performance suffered with the longest clips, but experienced drivers' performance did not, suggesting that experienced drivers find hazard prediction less effortful. Secondly, predictive accuracy was found to be dependent on the temporal proximity of visual precursors to the hazard. Thirdly the relationship between the hazard and its precursor was found to be important, with less obvious precursors improving the discrimination between novice and experience drivers. These findings demonstrate that a measure of hazard prediction, which is less confounded by the influence of risk appraisal than simple response time measures, can still discriminate between novice and experienced drivers. Application of this methodology under different conditions can produce insights into the underlying processes that may be at work, whilst also providing an alternative test of driver skill in relation to the detection of hazards.3

Are situation awareness and decision-making in driving totally conscious processes? Results of a hazard prediction task

“…in a hazardous situation was found to depend on the driver's experience. This extends beyond research that has previously compared novice and experienced drivers (Crundall, 2016, Jackson et al, 2009Lim, Sheppard and Crundall, 2014) and demonstrates that this skill develops across a wider spectrum of experience than we may have first thought, from learner, through to highly experienced (see also Castro et al, 2014;Ventsislavova et al, 2016). As this predictive skill underlies the whole hazard avoidance process (Pradhan and Crundall, 2017), and is therefore crucial to safe driving (Horswill and McKenna, 2004), it follows that authorities should make efforts to improve hazard prediction in novice and learner drivers.…”

“…Recording conformed with the Nottingham protocol (Jackson et al, 2009;Crundall 2016). Sixteen of the 300 high definition (HD) video-clips, with a resolution of 1920 X 1080, were selected for use in the test.…”

“…In comparison with a traditional hazard perception methodology, evidence suggests that this hazard prediction test format is also good at discriminating between experienced, safer drivers and inexperienced, less-safe drivers (e.g. Castro et al, 2014, Crundall 2016. However, one benefit of the hazard prediction test over the hazard perception test is that it removes post-perceptual biases from the measure, such as response criterion (where participants may delay responding to a perceived hazard because they feel it falls within their skill level to avoid it).…”

Drivers’ Visual Search Patterns during Overtaking Maneuvers on Freeway

“…The related research findings have demonstrated that the higher accident rate of novice drivers is due to their lack of driving experiences. Different visual searching modes and visual field loss influence driving performances, such as lane keeping and gap judgment [27,28,29,30,31,32]. Therefore, visual attention has been considered to be one of the primary contributing factors for accidents.…”

Game-based situation awareness training for child and adult cyclists

“…When a hazard is acute, it requires an immediate reaction to avoid a collision, while for a latent hazard, there are cues which can be used to predict the potential hazard. It has been suggested that the main source of individual differences in HP skill is the ability to use cues to predict latent hazards [12,18]. This means that individuals with good HP skills must be able to acquire high level SA of the situation.…”