Speed perception on urban straight roads

A research program was undertaken on behalf of the federal office of road safety to evaluate the role of road category and width, roadside development, travel speed, driver experience and the sex of the driver on a driver's perception of speed. A pilot study revealed that laboratory testing with moving stimulus materials was suitable for eliciting road speed judgements. A multi factorial experiment was undertaken using 16 mm film segments of urban road scenes in Melbourne where the independent variables were systematically manipulated. Thirty six licensed drivers provided estimates of safe operating speed and travel speed (in km/h) for each road scene. The results showed that presentation speed was the strongest variable in the experiment. The type of road and road width also had a strong influence on the subjects' judgments and there were reliable roadside environment effects. While there was a slight suggestion that female responses were more accurate than male responses, driving experience had practically no effect on speed perception (a).

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Pagination: 26-36
  • Monograph Title: Pedestrian accidents in metropolitan Melbourne 1960 vs 1981, preliminary results
  • Serial:
    • Volume: 14
    • Issue Number: 4

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01429715
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: ARRB
  • Files: ATRI
  • Created Date: Aug 24 2012 3:34PM