Road lighting and distraction whilst driving: Establishing the significant types of distraction

Abstract

There is a body of research showing how changes in lighting conditions affect hazard detection in the context of driving after dark. There is a separate body of research showing that driving is impaired by distraction. The two have yet to be integrated: this is critical for lighting design recommendations because giving consideration to distraction may affect the optimal conditions established in lighting studies. A first step in that process is establishing the critical type(s) of distraction that might then be simulated in lighting research. This paper reviews evidence for the prevalence of driving distractions as recorded by two methods: interviews with drivers following collision and observation of drivers on real roads. These data suggest that auditory distractions such as conversation with passengers and listening to music are prevalent distractions, and are therefore appropriate distractions to incorporate in further research of lighting and hazard detection experiments.

The effect of distraction, response mode and age on peripheral target detection to inform studies of lighting for driving

“…It has been suggested that conversation is a critical distraction when driving 23 and the current results confirm that parallel distraction impairs the ability to detect peripheral targets. However, it is difficult to establish the Distraction and peripheral detection 15 degree of distraction imposed by conversation due to it being unstructured, emotionally involving, and needs to be tailored to each participant 27 and the nature of the conversation.…”

“…The 60 young participants were aged 18-25 years. This range is similar to that (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24) used by the (UK) Department for Transport to define young car drivers, for whom there is a high casualty rate when weighted by distance travelled. 44 One group of 30 completed the experiment using the simple response and the other group of 30 used the choice response.…”

“…One consideration is whether drivers' task prioritisation or the influence of distraction vary with age. Roadside observation studies of driving distraction did not find a significant effect of age on the prevalence of passenger conversation, 52 the most frequently observed driver distraction, 23 but found a decrease in mobile phone distraction with age. 22,52 The interaction between age and task priority allocation was investigated in a study of walking.…”

“…22 A review of such work established that auditory distraction from conversation with passengers is the most prevalent distraction when driving. 23 Past studies of peripheral detection (Table 1) did not account for the effect, if any, of distractions. The interaction between lighting and distraction may be considered in two ways.…”

“…Auditory distraction is particularly problematic for peripheral target detection 24 and is a prevalent on-road distraction. 23 The current experiment therefore included different types of auditory distraction task. These auditory tasks were compared to one visual task, number fixation, which was used in previous work for the purpose of fixation maintenance.…”