SOME RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN VISION AND DRIVING

MAJOR FINDINGS ARE PRESENTED OF A LARGE-SCALE LONG-RANGE STUDY OF THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN VISUAL ABILITY, AS MEASURED ON SEVERAL STANDARD AND NON-STANDARD SCREENING TESTS, AND DRIVING PERFORMANCE, AS REFLECTED IN DRIVING RECORD. THE STUDY WAS CONDUCTED BY THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR AUTOMOTIVE MEDICINE IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES (DMV). VISUAL PERFORMANCE WAS COMPARED WITH 3-YEAR DRIVING RECORDS. TWO DRIVING RECORD VARIABLES WERE INCLUDED IN THE STUDY AS CRITERION MEASURES OF PERFORMANCE: CRASHES INCURRED OVER A THIRTY-SIX-MONTH PERIOD AND CONVICTIONS FOR TRAFFIC CITATIONS OVER THE SAME PERIOD. IN ADDITION TO THE VISION AND DRIVING RECORD VARIABLES, THREE VARIABLES, INCLUDED IN THE STUDY, WERE EXPERIMENTALLY CONTROLLED BECAUSE OF THEIR ESTABLISHED INFLUENCE UPON VISION OR DRIVING PERFORMANCE, OR BOTH. THESE WERE AGE, SEX AND AVERAGE ANNUAL MILEAGE (QUANTITATIVE EXPOSURE TO RISK). A TOTAL OF NEARLY 17,500 VOLUNTEER DRIVER LICENSE APPLICANTS WERE PROCESSED. HOWEVER, 3-YEAR RECORDS WERE AVAILABLE ONLY ON 14,215 DRIVERS AT THE TIME OF ANALYSIS. THE FOLLOWING STATISTICAL TREATMENTS WERE MADE OF THE DATA: (1) CORRELATIONAL ANALYSES TO DESCRIBE THE SIMPLE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PAIRS OF DIFFERENT VARIABLES, BOTH FOR THE TOTAL SAMPLE AND FOR AGE, SEX OR MILEAGE SUBGROUPS, AND (2) MULTIPLE-REGRESSION ANALYSES TO PERMIT A MORE DETAILED AND COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION OF THE INFLUENCE OF GIVEN VARIABLES UPON DRIVING RECORD, WHILE OTHER VARIABLES OF KNOWN INFLUENCE ARE BEING HELD CONSTANT. THESE ANALYSES PERMIT UTILIZING THE MULTIPLE-PREDICTOR APPROACH TO THE PREDICTION OF DRIVING RECORD. THE MAJOR DATA ANALYSES REVEAL THAT AGE, SEX AND MILEAGE ALL HEAVILY INFLUENCE CRASH AND CONVICTION EXPERIENCE. THE FOLLOWING FINDINGS WERE FOUND WITH REGARD TO VISION AND DRIVING: (1) AMONG THE VISION VARIABLES STUDIED, DYNAMIC VISUAL ACUITY SHOWS THE STRONGEST AND MOST CONSISTENT RELATIONSHIPS WITH DRIVING RECORD, (2) THE DATA SUGGEST DIFFERENTIAL VISION-DRIVING RELATIONSHIPS AS A FUNCTION OF AGE, AND (3) THE DATA STRONGLY SUGGEST DIFFERENTIAL VISION-DRIVING RELATIONSHIPS AS A FUNCTION OF SEX. THE RESULTS OBTAINED FROM THE MAJOR ANALYSES CONDUCTED SUPPORT THE CONCLUSION THAT THERE IS A SMALL BUT SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DRIVING PERFORMANCE, AS REFLECTED IN DRIVING RECORD, AND SOME ASPECTS OF VISUAL PERFORMANCE, NOTABLY, DYNAMIC VISUAL ACUITY AND, TO A LESSER EXTENT, STATIC VISUAL ACUITY, VISUAL FIELD, AND GLARE RECOVERY.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • pp 61-69, 8 REF
• Authors:
  • BURG, A
• Publication Date: 1970

Media Info

• Serial:
  • American Association for Auto Medicine, Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Age; Driver performance; Drivers; Gender; Glare; Personnel performance; Records management; Regression analysis; Statistical analysis; Traffic conviction; Traffic crashes; Vision; Visual perception
• Uncontrolled Terms: Convictions; Mileage; Records
• Old TRIS Terms: Driver vision
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Finance; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00220903
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: pp 104-108
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 22 1970 12:00AM