The Impact of Vehicle Automation on the Safety of Vulnerable Road Users (Pedestrians and Bicyclists)

Previous studies have demonstrated that young drivers fail to both scan for and mitigate latent hazards, mostly due to their cluelessness. This study investigated whether these skills could be improved by providing young drivers with alerts in advance of an upcoming threat using a driving simulator experiment. A warning was presented on head-up displays (HUD) either 2 s, 3 s, or 4 s in advance of a latent threat. The hazard anticipation, hazard mitigation, and attention maintenance performance of 48 young drivers aged 18-25 years was evaluated across eight unique scenarios either in the presence or in the absence of latent threat alerts displayed on a HUD. There were four groups overall: one control group (no alert) and three experimental groups (2 s alert, 3 s alert, and 4 s alert). The analysis of the hazard anticipation data showed that all three experimental groups with HUD warnings (2 s, 3 s, 4 s) significantly increased the likelihood that drivers would glance towards latent pedestrian and vehicle hazards when compared to the control group. The hazard mitigation analysis showed that in situations involving a pedestrian threat, HUD alerts that were provided 3 or 4 s in advance of a potential threat led drivers to travel significantly more slowly than the control group or the 2 s group. No significant effect of a HUD alert on drivers’ speed was found when the latent hazard was a vehicle. An analysis of eye behaviors showed that only 7 out of 597 glances at the HUD were longer than the 2 s safety threshold, indicating that the warnings do not seem to distract the driver.

• Record URL:
  http://safersim.nads-sc.uiowa.edu/final_reports/UM%201%20Y2%20report.pdf
• 
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This document was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  Safety Research Using Simulation University Transportation Center (SaferSim)

  University of Iowa
  Iowa City, IA  United States  52242

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Samuel, Siby
  • Knodler, Michael
• Publication Date: 2018-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 31p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automation; Cyclists; Distraction; Driving simulators; Hazards; Intelligent vehicles; Pedestrian safety; Pedestrians; Teenage drivers; Traffic safety; Vulnerable road users; Young adults
• Subject Areas: Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01667139
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: UTC, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Apr 25 2018 11:14AM