Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Previous research into drivers' ability to assess road hazards has focused on experimenter, or expert, defined hazards. The present study attempted to use a more objective definition of hazard by comparing drivers' ratings of hazard for a series of road segments with the actual crash rates for those segments. Forty-one transportation professionals (operationally defined as “Experts”) and 38 undergraduate students (“Novices”) participated. A personal computer was used to display 24 randomly selected road segments from the 1994 Connecticut Photolog to participants, who then responded to a 6-item hazard perception survey (based on Groeger & Chapman, 1996). A Mann-Whitney U analysis indicated that the correlations between drivers' perceptions of hazard and actual crash rates were significantly higher for Experts than for Novices. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Al Masaeid

H. R.

Alsuleiman

T. I.

Aamed

M. M.

Halawa

K. R.

(1994). Impacts of small rural turns on road safety and traffic operation. Road and Transport Research, 3(1), 86–97.

Bonneson

J. A.

McCoy

P. T.

(1997). Effect of median treatment on urban arterial safety: An accident prediction model. Transportation Research Record, 1581, 27–36.

Deery

H. A.

Love

A. W.

(1996). The effect of a moderate dose of alcohol on the traffic hazard perception profile of young drink-drivers. Addiction, 91(6), 815–827.

Groeger

J. A.

Chapman

P. R.

(1996). Judgment of traffic scenes: The role of danger and difficulty. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10, 349–364.

Hills

(1980). Vision, visibility, and perception in driving. Perception, 9, 183–216.

Horswill

M. S.

McKenna

F. P.

(1998). Hazard perception and driving. In Grayson

G. B.

(Ed.), (pp. 13–17). Crowthorne, Berkshire: Transportation Research Laboratory.

Kim

Albert-Thenet

Vercruyssen

(1997). Inattention and misjudgment in older drivers involved in automobile collissions in Hawai'i, 1986–1991. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 41st Annual Meeting, 120–124.

McKenna

F. P.

Crick

J. L.

(1994). Hazard perception in drivers: A methodology for testing and training., (Contractor Report 113), Crowthorne, Berkshire: Transport Research Laboratory.

The Relationship between Crash Rates and Drivers' Hazard Assessments Using the Connecticut Photolog

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References