An analysis of 'looked but failed to see' accidents involving parked police vehicles

Abstract

Drivers who collide with a vehicle that is parked on the hard shoulder of a motorway or dual-carriageway sometimes claim not to have seen it before the collision. Previous research into vehicle conspicuity has taken such 'looked but failed to see' claims at face value, and concentrated on attempting to remedy the problem by making vehicles more conspicuous in sensory terms. However, the present study describes investigations into accidents of this kind which have involved stationary police cars, vehicles which are objectively highly conspicuous. Two laboratory studies showed that experienced drivers viewing a film of dual-carriageway driving were slower to respond to a parked police car as a 'hazard' if it was parked directly in the direction of travel than if it was parked at an angle; this effect was more pronounced when the driver's attention was distracted with a secondary reasoning task. Taken together with the accident reports, these results suggest that 'looked but failed to see' accidents may arise not because the parked vehicle is difficult to see, but for more cognitive reasons, such as vigilance failure, or possession by the driver of a 'false hypothesis' about the road conditions ahead. An emergency vehicle parked in the direction of travel, with only its blue lights flashing, may encourage drivers to believe that the vehicle is moving rather than stationary. Parking at an angle in the road, and avoiding the use of blue lights alone while parked, are two steps that drivers of parked emergency vehicles should consider taking in order to alert approaching drivers to the fact that a stationary vehicle is ahead.

Emotionally involving telephone conversations lead to driver error and visual tunnelling

“…They show increased reaction times for critical events in the driving scene (Horrey & Wickens, 2004;Strayer & Drews, 2007), and poor decision-making abilities (Brown, Tickner, & Simmonds, 1969). They may fail to detect other road users and road signs (Galpin, Underwood, & Crundall, 2009;Langham, Hole, Edwards, & O'Neil, 2002;Strayer & Johnston, 2001); Their lane discipline is poor (Alm & Nilsson, 1994Redelmeier & Tibshirani, 1997;Reed & Robbins, 2008); they show alterations in speed choice (Reed & Robbins, 2008); and they make questionable headway and gap judgements (McKnight & McKnight, 1993;Stevens & Minton, 2001; see Collet, Guillot, & Petit, 2010, for a review of research in this area).…”

Signal evaluation environment: a new method for the design of peripheral in-vehicle warning signals

“…Staughton & Storie, 1977; see also Hills, 1980;Rumar, 1990). Relatively few studies have shown that these LBFTS errors are very relevant, especially at intersections (see, e.g., Brown, 2005;Cairney & Catchpole, 1996;Herslund & Jørgensen, 2003;Hills, 1980;Koustanaï, Boloix, Van Elslande, & Bastien, 2008;Langham, Hole, Edwards, & O'Neil, 2002;Sabey & Staughton, 1975;Staughton & Storie, 1977). The second kind of error corresponds to an inadequate allocation of the driver's attention.…”

Situated Perception and Sensation in Vision and Other Modalities

“…Phenomena like this are, in fact, well known as "looked but failed to see" errors in ergonomics, where it has been observed that vehicle drivers frequently collide with obstacles that they are directly looking at (e.g., trains passing by at railway crossings, police cars stopped by the side of the road, bicycles passing directly in front of them, airplanes parked in the middle of the runway; see Herslund & Jorgensen, 2003;Hills, 1980;Langham, Hole, Edwards, & O'Neil, 2002). They show again the importance of attentive exploration of the scene for there to be awareness of its contents.…”