Rear-end crashes are one of the leading types of crashes today. The anti-lock braking system (ABS) was designed to assist drivers during emergency braking situations by preventing wheel lock up, allowing drivers to retain control of the vehicle. Not all drivers have knowledge and experience with ABS, especially the haptic brake pedal feedback produced by ABS. There studies introduce a new method to train ABS using an emergency braking task on a simulator and an interactive exercise, Pedals Emergency Stop©. The interactive exercise was designed to prompt participants to press the brake pedal in a motion that is consistent with emergency braking and experience haptic ABS feedback. Participants that depressed the brake pedal quickly to the maximum travel and held that pedal position “passed” the trial. In Study 1, participants (N = 63) completed 15 trials, where it took on average three trials to “pass” for the first time, and 85% of the participants experienced their first “pass” within the first four trials. There were no differences observed between participants with previous knowledge and experience feeling ABS versus those who did not have prior knowledge and experience with ABS. The participants in this study thought that they had enough trials, that the exercise was a practical tool, and recommended the task for new drivers and refresher training, as well as for evaluating fitness to drive. Suggested improvements included a practice followed by three tests, all with four trials each; passing criteria of three out of four trials; and modifications to the feedback presented immediately after completing each trail. Study 2 was conducted (N = 38) to investigate the proposed “passing” criteria, where 95% passed on Test 1. The results revealed that the criteria to pass was reasonable. Future research should examine how the Pedals Emergency Stop© interactive exercise generalizes to on-road driving.

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Fully autonomous vehicles have the potential to fundamentally transform the future transportation system. While previous research has examined individuals’ perceptions towards fully autonomous vehicles, a complete understanding of attitudes and opinions across the lifespan is unknown. Therefore, individuals’ awareness, acceptance, and preferences towards autonomous vehicles were obtained from 75 participants through interviews with three diverse groups of participants: 20 automotive engineering graduate students who were building an autonomous concept vehicle, 21 non-technical adults, and 34 senior citizens. The results showed that regardless of age, an individual’s readiness to ride in a fully autonomous vehicle and the vehicle’s requirements were influenced by the users’ understanding of autonomous vehicles. All of the engineering students understand what a fully autonomous vehicle is and this group was the most willing to ride especially compared to the seniors, where only half of the seniors knew what a fully autonomous vehicle is and 58.8% were not at all ready to ride one. The desire to have a manual control option or the ability to override the vehicle was common (90% of the engineering students, 95.2% of the adults, and 82.4% of the seniors), especially for individuals who reported not being ready to ride in a fully autonomous vehicle. The majority of all three groups of participants (85% of the engineering students, 81% of the adults, and 52.9% of the seniors) considered it essential that the vehicle should convey information about the vehicle’s status and intended behavior. Diagnostic information about the vehicle was desired by the engineering students (71.4%), who had a technical understanding of autonomous vehicles and current automotive related technologies. When autonomous vehicles are available, most participants anticipate preferring to use them as a rideshare service model (75% of the engineering students, 38% of the adults, and 27% of the seniors) rather than owning (5% of the engineering students, 19% of the adults, and 21% of the seniors) the autonomous vehicle themselves. Regarding the topic of sharing rides with strangers, both the automotive engineering students (90%) and the adults (52.6%) were comfortable with the idea of pooled rideshare in comparison to the seniors (29.4%). In future efforts, it will be important to include potential autonomous vehicle users of a wide age range as well as physical, cognitive, and visual abilities.</div></div>