Eyeglance behavior and scanning patterns may be learned as a driver gains experience and lead to greater situation awareness on the part of the driver. This may help to explain differences observed in the safety records of novice teen and experienced adult drivers. For example, new drivers may focus almost exclusively on the road ahead and spend little time scanning the vehicle's mirrors. However, a novice driver performing a secondary task may spend more time with his or her eyes on the task than on the road, because of unfamiliarity with the vehicle or inexperience with consequences of long glances away from the forward view. For this study, 18 novice teen (under 17.5 years old and within 4 weeks of licensure) and 18 experienced adult drivers performed a set of in-vehicle tasks on a test track. A baseline driving segment was also included. Measures consisted of percentage of eyes-off-road (EOR) time, number of glances, and mean single-glance time. Results showed that teens glanced at the rearview mirror significantly fewer times than did adults, both during baseline driving and while performing in-vehicle tasks. Teens also had a significantly higher percentage of EOR time than adults had while performing a challenging reading task. The novice teen drivers spent more of their overall EOR time looking at the task display (e.g., cell phone), whereas adults used some EOR time to check mirrors or windows. Overall findings indicate that novice teens may lack the situation awareness of experienced adults.
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