EVALUATION OF LABORATORY METHODS FOR THE STUDY OF DRIVER BEHAVIOR: RELATIONS BETWEEN SIMULATOR AND STREET PERFORMANCE

Road performance data on 304 taxi drivers were obtained by pairs of trained observers using behavioral checklists. Drivers did not know they were being observed. Two thirds of the drivers were then asked to participate in the laboratory study in which they performed on two different driving simulators and on four perceptual-motor tests. Officially recorded accidents and violations over a 5-year period were obtained for each driver for comparison with performance data. Few of the scores from the simulators or tests were found to be significantly correlated with road performance. A number of significant relations were found between perceptual-motor test performance and simulator performance. Although these correlations were not high, they tended to be more significant than those between all performance measures and officially recorded accident an correlated with simulator performance. Relations between all performance measures and officially recorded accident and violation data were low. Some significant predictors of certain classes of violations were achieved from road performance measures obtained in the study.