No abstract

Hazard perception in driving involves a number of different processes. This paper reports the development of two measures designed to separate these processes. A Hazard Perception Test was developed to measure how quickly drivers could anticipate hazards overall, incorporating detection, trajectory prediction, and hazard classification judgements. A Hazard Change Detection Task was developed to measure how quickly drivers can detect a hazard in a static image regardless of whether they consider it hazardous or not. For the Hazard Perception Test, young novices were slower than mid-age experienced drivers, consistent with differences in crash risk, and test performance correlated with scores in pre-existing Hazard Perception Tests. For drivers aged 65 and over, scores on the Hazard Perception Test declined with age and correlated with both contrast sensitivity and a Useful Field of View measure. For the Hazard Change Detection Task, novices responded quicker than the experienced drivers, contrary to crash risk trends, and test performance did not correlate with measures of overall hazard perception. However for drivers aged 65 and over, test performance declined with age and correlated with both hazard perception and Useful Field of View. Overall we concluded that there was support for the validity of the Hazard Perception Test for all ages but the Hazard Change Detection Task might only be appropriate for use with older drivers.

Hazard perception in driving is the one of the few driving-specifi c skills associated with crash involvement. However, this relationship has only been examined in studies where the majority of individuals were younger than 65. We present the fi rst data revealing an association between hazard perception and self-reported crash involvement in drivers aged 65 and over. In a sample of 271 drivers, we found that individuals whose mean response time to traffi c hazards was slower than 6.68 s [the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve derived pass mark for the test] were 2.32 times [95% confi dence interval (CI), 1.46, 3.22) more likely to have been involved in a self-reported crash within the previous 5 years than those with faster response times. This likelihood ratio became 2.37 (95% CI, 1.49, 3.28) when driving exposure was controlled for. As a comparison, individuals who failed a test of useful fi eld of view were 2.70 (95% CI, 1.44, 4.44) times more likely to crash than those who passed. The hazard perception test and the useful fi eld of view measure accounted for separate variance in crash involvement. These fi ndings indicate that hazard perception testing and training could be potentially useful for road safety interventions for this age group. ( JINS , 2010, 16 , 939-944.)

Even though the driving ability of older adults may decline with age, there is evidence that some individuals attempt to compensate for these declines using strategies such as restricting their driving exposure. Such compensatory mechanisms rely on drivers' ability to evaluate their own driving performance. This paper focuses on one key aspect of driver ability that is associated with crash risk and has been found to decline with age: hazard perception. Three hundred and seven drivers, aged 65-96, completed a validated video-based hazard perception test. There was no significant relationship between hazard perception test response latencies and drivers' ratings of their hazard perception test performance, suggesting that their ability to assess their own test performance was poor. Also, age-related declines in hazard perception latency were not reflected in drivers' self-ratings. Nonetheless, ratings of test performance were associated with self-reported regulation of driving, as was self-rated driving ability. These findings are consistent with the proposal that, while self-assessments of driving ability may be used by drivers to determine the degree to which they restrict their driving, the problem is that drivershave little insight into their own driving ability. This may impact on the potential road safety benefits of self-restriction of driving because drivers may not have the information needed to optimally self-restrict. Strategies for addressing this problem are discussed.

This chapter covers current and future technologies relevant to older drivers. It does this using a systems framework, reviewing research and issues relating to older adults and technology at the level of the road user, the transport infrastructure and the vehicle. While most Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) currently exist at the level of the vehicle (technologies such as satellite navigation, collision avoidance, and hazard alerting systems), research and development at the infrastructure level also holds promise of significant improvements in automotive safety through the exchange and coordination of digital information between vehicles and the roads upon which they are driven. At the individual level, there are also increasingly sophisticated technologies being developed that aim to accurately identify potentially unsafe drivers, and to maintain and even enhance cognitive capacities that are critically important to safe driving. This chapter begins with a review of salient characteristics of older drivers, before discussing current and future technologies at each level of the adopted framework: the road user, the road, and the vehicle.