title: Light truck vehicles (LTVs) contribution to rear-end collisions.
abstract: Light truck vehicles (LTVs), comprising light-duty trucks, vans, and sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) drive higher and wider than passenger cars which could affect the visibility for the following passenger car driver. This paper investigates the contribution of LTVs to rear-end collisions resulting from horizontal visibility blockage using the University of Central Florida sophisticated reconfigurable driving simulator. Indeed, a sudden stop of a leading LTV, in the shadow of the blindness of the succeeding passenger car driver, may deprive the latter of a sufficient response time, which may lead to high probability of a rear-end collision. To investigate this issue, two scenarios were developed in the UCF driving simulator. The first scenario serves as a base scenario where the simulator car follows a passenger car, and the second scenario serves as a test scenario, where the simulator car follows an LTV. The results obtained by comparing the scenarios showed that LTVs produce more rear-end collisions at unsignalized intersections due to horizontal visibility blockage and due to the resulting drivers' behavior when driving behind an LTV.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Central Florida, United States. Ramyz5@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Rami
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Harb
authors.forename: Essam
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Radwan
authors.forename: Xuedong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abdel-Aty
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000328:Adult; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003654:Deceleration; D004215:Distance Perception; D005260:Female; D005431:Florida; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018986:Motor Vehicles / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009949:Orientation; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011336:Probability; D014796:Visual Perception