Effect of Visual and Auditory Alerts on Older Drivers’ Glances toward Latent Hazards while Turning Left at Intersections

Abstract

Older drivers are known to make significantly fewer glances toward hazards that are hidden from view (latent hazards) than middle-aged drivers. This is especially true when the driver is making a left turn at an intersection at that critical point in the turn immediately after the driver enters the intersection. This has led to the development of training programs that can increase the frequency of these glances toward latent hazards at intersections. However, training programs can require time and money that many older adults may not have. Advances in machine vision and vehicle-to-vehicle communications technologies make possible the use of alerts that warn older drivers of the location of latent hazards at intersections. This driving simulator study investigates the effect of auditory and visual warning alerts on older drivers’ primary (before entering the intersection) and secondary (just after entering the intersection) glance behavior when making a left turn at an intersection. In a between-subjects design, forty older drivers navigated eight unique scenarios containing latent hazards either in the presence or in the absence of combined auditory and visual hazard warning alerts. The results showed that older drivers anticipated a significantly greater proportion of latent hazards in the presence of warning alerts both before they enter the intersection and after they enter the intersection. The results of this study suggest that a combination of auditory and visual alerts may be effective at improving older drivers’ glance behavior while making left turns at intersections.

Vehicle–pedestrian Interactions Into and Outside of Crosswalks: Effects of Driver Assistance Systems

“…In other words, if the driver reaches the triggering point located at 55.6 m from the pedestrian crossing with a higher or a lower speed of 50 km/h, the values of the time to collision will be lower or higher, re-spectively, than 4 s. It should be noted that, taking into account the variability of the approaching speeds at the pedestrian crossing, the actual values of the time to collision in the moment in which the warning is triggered recorded during the simulated drives, are expected in the interval between 2.8 and 6.5 s (2.8 s for speed equal to 70 km/h and triggering point 55.6 m from the pedestrian crossing; 6.5 s for speed equal to 30 km/h and triggering point 55.6 m from the pedestrian crossing). Such values are fully consistent with those reported in literature (Scott, Gray 2008;Yan et al 2015b;Hajiseyedjavadi et al 2018;Bakhtiari et al 2019). In other terms, the design of the experiment implies the simulation of ADAS in which the time to collision values are fully consistent with those suggested in literature.…”

Engineering Countermeasures for Left Turns at Signalized Intersections: A Review

“…Another recent study utilised a driving simulator to investigate the effectiveness of visual and auditory warning alerts on older drivers' ability to anticipate threats while turning left at intersections (Bakhtiari et al, 2019). The results showed that across 8 scenarios, the in-vehicle warning system helped drivers anticipate (S. stands for Success (Effectiveness of the Countermeasure); Lit.…”

Analyzing Drivers’ Mental Patterns Using Q-Methodology

“…Based on accident databases, causes related to vehicle, environment, and road factors affecting the occurrence of accidents have been investigated by researchers through various studies [14]- [23]. Previously, various studies have focused on the causes of accidents, especially human factors as a considerable factor of accidents [4] [5] [6] [7] [17] [20] [21] [22]. For instance, Young et al (2018) reported the possible effects of texting while driving as a human error factor [23].…”