Abstract
Pedestrians can make themselves more visible to nighttime drivers by strategically placing retroreflective material on the major joints of the body to highlight their biological motion (biomotion). However, past research on pedestrian conspicuity has largely focused on drivers who are not distracted. Distracted driving is the one of most common causal factor of vehicle crashes and is increasing with advancements in technology. The purpose of this project was to assess the effect of driver distraction on the effectiveness of biomotion to enhance the conspicuity of pedestrians at night. Participants were driven along a predetermined route and asked to respond to all pedestrians they encountered. A test pedestrian, placed along the route, was either walking or standing in place while wearing retroreflective biomotion markings. Approximately half of the participants were distracted by a secondary task while also searching for pedestrians. Although highlighting the pedestrian’s biomotion maximized their conspicuity, there was no evidence that biomotion mitigated the detrimental effects of distraction.
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