title: Some hazards are more attractive than others: drivers of varying experience respond differently to different types of hazard.
abstract: The ability to detect hazards in video clips of driving has been inconsistently linked to driving experience and skill. One potential reason for the lack of consistency is the failure to understand the structural differences between those hazards that discriminate between safe and unsafe drivers, and those that do not. The current study used a car simulator to test drivers of differing levels of experience on approach to a series of hazards that were categorized a priori according to their underlying structure. The results showed that learner drivers took longer to fixate hazards, although they were particularly likely to miss hazards that were obscured by the environment (such as a pedestrian emerging from behind a parked truck). While drivers with a moderate amount of experience were as fast as driving instructors to look at hazards, they spent the greatest amount of time looking at them. Only instructors' ability to detect hazards early in the approach translated into differences in driving speed for certain types of hazard. The results demonstrate that drivers of varying experience respond differently to different hazards, and lay the foundations for a hazard typology.
authors.affiliation: Accident Research Unit, School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, UK. david.crundall@nottingham.ac.uk
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Crundall
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chapman
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Trawley
authors.forename: Lyn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.forename: Editha
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Loon
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Andrews
authors.forename: Geoffrey
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Underwood
mesh_terms: D000054:Acceleration; D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000523:psychology*; D001336:Automobiles; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004779:Environment Design; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009049:Motorcycles; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012449:Safety; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D014741:Video Recording; D016138:Walking / Q000293:injuries