Blind haste: As light decreases, speeding increases.
Worldwide, more than one million people die on the roads each year. A third of these fatal accidents are attributed to speeding, with properties of the individual driver and the environment regarded as key contributing factors. The authors examine real-world speeding behavior and its interaction with illuminance, an environmental property defined as the luminous flux incident on a surface. Drawing on an analysis of 1.2 million vehicle movements, the authors show that reduced illuminance levels are associated with increased speeding. This relationship persists when the authors control for factors known to influence speeding (e.g., fluctuations in traffic volume) and consider proxies of illuminance (e.g., sight distance). The authors' findings add to a long-standing debate about how the quality of visual conditions affects drivers' speed perception and driving speed. Policy makers can intervene by educating drivers about the inverse illuminance-speeding relationship and by testing how improved vehicle headlights and smart road lighting can attenuate speeding.
- Record URL:
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Supplemental Notes:
- © 2018 Emanuel de Bellis et al.
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Authors:
- de Bellis, Emanuel
- Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael
- Brucks, Wernher
- Herrmann, Andreas
- Hertwig, Ralph
- Publication Date: 2018
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Web
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: e0188951
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Serial:
- PLoS One
- Volume: 13
- Issue Number: 1
- Publisher: Public Library of Science
- EISSN: 1932-6203
- Serial URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
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Publication flags:
Open Access (libre)
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Drivers; Fatalities; Headlamps; Lighting; Perception; Sight distance; Speeding; Traffic safety
- Uncontrolled Terms: Illuminance
- Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01665883
- Record Type: Publication
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: Apr 11 2018 11:37AM