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Collision statistics show that more than half of all pedestrian fatalities caused by vehicles occur at night. The recognition of objects at night is a crucial component in driver responses and in preventing nighttime pedestrian accidents. To investigate the root cause of this fact pattern, Richard Blackwell conducted a series of experiments in the 1950s through 1970s to evaluate whether restricted viewing time can be used as a surrogate for the imperfect information available to drivers at night. The authors build on these findings and incorporate the responses of drivers to objects in the road at night found in the SHRP-2 naturalistic database. A closed road outdoor study and an indoor study were conducted using an automatic shutter system to limit observation time to approximately ¼ of a second. Results from these limited exposure time studies showed a positive correlation to naturalistic responses, providing a validation of the time-limited exposure technique.

Controlled studies identified several factors that influence drivers' swerving when responding to in an emergency situation. Specifically, driver age, time-to-contact, amplitude of the steering action (steer within lane or swerving into the next lane), distraction, fatigue, natural lighting and available buffer space were identified as factors that influence steering behaviors. The goal of the current research was to identify the extent to which each factor changed swerving performances of drivers who were faced with a crash or near crash. Results from crashes and near crashes were obtained from the InSight (SHRP-2) naturalistic driving study. The results from the controlled studies and the results from the naturalistic driving research were consistent in many ways. Drivers engaged in a visual-manual secondary task were much younger than were the drivers who had no distracting secondary task.

A method for evaluating a driver's response in a nighttime crash scenario is offered. A pedestrian can be said to be within the headlight beam when the line representing the shape of a headlight beam equals the pedestrian approach vector. This method is based upon headlight beam mapping and the illumination necessary for drivers to recognize non-illuminated objects on an unlit road at night. The most notable information gained through this research is to be able to correlate headlight illumination with driver response distances. From 25 nighttime driver response distance experiments, information was gathered from many of the original authors. This information includes position left or right, headlight type, lighting, movement of the object or pedestrian, and the position (standing, slumped or laying).

The turn-across-path from opposite-direction [LTAP-OD] crash type contributes to one of the major fatal crash types in young drivers. Drivers responses in police reportable and severe crashes and near crashes involving an LTAP-OD scenario were evaluated from query of the Second Strategic Highway Research Program [SHRP-2]. This research examined the responses of through drivers. 122 such events were analyzed to extract driver braking behavior, secondary tasks, age, and perception-response times. All measures of through driver variables were compared with respect to turning driver behavior. The study aimed to identify the trigger event for drivers to respond to the left turning vehicle. Time to contact was a significant factor which affected driver response times. Drivers responded significantly faster when subjected to shorter time to contact events compared to longer ones.

A primary goal of crash reconstruction (or collision avoidance system) is to determine whether a crash is avoidable or not. A prerequisite for the determination of avoidance is knowledge of the time that is available to a driver. In a path intrusion crash scenario, a method to determine the time available for a major road driver is to know the time a minor road driver accelerated before impact. This research is an attempt to model the time based upon acceleration distance. The current study involved two parts. Part one was a naturalistic study of driver acceleration behavior at two-way-stop controlled intersections. In part two, ten drivers with instrumented vehicles were asked to drive a route that included four acceleration runs at two-way-stop sign control intersections. In the naturalistic study, the accelerations were measured using video recordings and videogrammetry at known distances.

Rear-end crashes account for more than one in five fatal crashes in the U.S. The rear-end crash scenario most commonly associated with fatal crashes involves a following vehicle traveling 40 to 70 mph closing on a lead vehicle at a rate greater than 30 mph. The current research compiled an analysis of the literature to identify the kinematic factors, environmental factors, traffic-related factors and individual differences that are likely to influence drivers’ responses when closing on a slower-moving or stopped lead vehicle [LV]. In Part 1, several primarily kinematic-based methods for modeling drivers’ responses to a LV were compared for high-speed closing events. Methods utilizing looming (angular growth rate) equations were shown to predict drivers’ responses and time-to-contact methods (Inverse Tau) were conditionally accurate when applied to specific crash scenarios. However, the ratio or nominal response time methods did not predict drivers’ responses in most crash scenarios.

Analyses of driver response time studies and fatal crash statistics were examined to determine: 1. whether all rear-end crash types can be analyzed as one crash type, 2. average braking thresholds for drivers, and 3. the influence cell phone usage has on drivers’ response times when responding to a lead vehicle. The goal of this research is to recommend protocols for investigating LV crashes that is supported by the literature. Two distinct lead vehicle [LV] response time events emerged: LV platoon (two vehicles traveling together in close proximity) and LV looming (a vehicle approaching a stopped or much slower LV). In normal driving, platoon LV events were very common but resulted in very few crashes per exposure. Young drivers were over-represented when they did occur. Onset of the hazardous event was when the LV decelerated, and drivers began braking roughly 3 to 5 seconds before impact.