Drivers’ Visual Search Patterns during Overtaking Maneuvers on Freeway

Drivers gather traffic information primarily by means of their vision. Especially during complicated maneuvers, such as overtaking, they need to perceive a variety of characteristics including the lateral and longitudinal distances with other vehicles, the speed of others vehicles, lane occupancy, and so on, to avoid crashes. The primary object of this study is to examine the appropriate visual search patterns during overtaking maneuvers on freeways. We designed a series of driving simulating experiments in which the type and speed of the leading vehicle were considered as two influential factors. One hundred and forty participants took part in the study. The participants overtook the leading vehicles just like they would usually do so, and their eye movements were collected by use of the Eye Tracker. The results show that participants’ gaze durations and saccade durations followed normal distribution patterns and that saccade angles followed a log-normal distribution pattern. It was observed that the type of leading vehicle significantly impacted the drivers’ gaze duration and gaze frequency. As the speed of a leading vehicle increased, subjects’ saccade durations became longer and saccade angles became larger. In addition, the initial and destination lanes were found to be key areas with the highest visual allocating proportion, accounting for more than 65% of total visual allocation. Subjects tended to more frequently shift their viewpoints between the initial lane and destination lane in order to search for crucial traffic information. However, they seldom directly shifted their viewpoints between the two wing mirrors.

[1]  David Crundall,et al.  Hazard prediction discriminates between novice and experienced drivers. , 2016, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[2]  P J Ward,et al.  Overtaking road-accidents: differences in manoeuvre as a function of driver age. , 1998, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[3]  William J Horrey,et al.  The Effects of Momentary Visual Disruption on Hazard Anticipation and Awareness in Driving , 2015, Traffic injury prevention.

[4]  B. Forster,et al.  Independent effects of eye gaze and spatial attention on the processing of tactile events: Evidence from event-related potentials , 2015, Biological Psychology.

[5]  Serge P. Hoogendoorn,et al.  Overtaking Assistant Assessment Using Traffic Simulation , 2009 .

[6]  Shlomo Bekhor,et al.  Association of risk proneness in overtaking maneuvers with impaired decision making , 2008 .

[7]  Fearghal O’Brien,et al.  Changes over 12 months in eye glances during secondary task engagement among novice drivers. , 2016, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[8]  Alain Muzet,et al.  Influence of age, speed and duration of monotonous driving task in traffic on the driver’s useful visual field , 2004, Vision Research.

[9]  Bevan B. Kirley,et al.  Crashes of novice teenage drivers: characteristics and contributing factors. , 2008, Journal of safety research.

[10]  Erik D. Reichle,et al.  Direct lexical control of eye movements in reading: Evidence from a survival analysis of fixation durations , 2012, Cognitive Psychology.

[11]  L. Itti,et al.  Visual causes versus correlates of attentional selection in dynamic scenes , 2006, Vision Research.

[12]  Natasha Merat,et al.  The effect of three low-cost engineering treatments on driver fatigue: A driving simulator study. , 2013, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[13]  Gerhard Rinkenauer,et al.  Response preparation in a lane change task , 2013, Ergonomics.

[14]  Jochen Müsseler,et al.  Adjust Your View! Wing-Mirror Settings Influence Distance Estimations and Lane-Change Decisions , 2015 .

[15]  Sami Mynttinen,et al.  Finnish novice drivers’ competences – Successful driving test candidates 2000–2009 evaluated by driving examiners , 2011 .

[16]  Karl Christoph Klauer,et al.  Double dissociations in visual and spatial short-term memory. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[17]  Allan F. Williams,et al.  A Review of Hazard Anticipation Training Programs for Young Drivers. , 2015, The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

[18]  Alexander Pollatsek,et al.  A simulator evaluation of the effects of attention maintenance training on glance distributions of younger novice drivers inside and outside the vehicle. , 2013, Transportation research. Part F, Traffic psychology and behaviour.

[19]  David Crundall,et al.  Exploring the ability to identify visual search differences when observing drivers’ eye movements , 2012 .

[20]  Feng Guo,et al.  Keep your eyes on the road: young driver crash risk increases according to duration of distraction. , 2014, The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

[21]  Igor Radun,et al.  Examining signs of driver sleepiness, usage of sleepiness countermeasures and the associations with sleepy driving behaviours and individual factors. , 2015, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[22]  Pilar Tejero,et al.  Rear-view mirror use, driver alertness and road type: an empirical study using EEG measures , 2006 .

[23]  William J Horrey,et al.  The effects of brief visual interruption tasks on drivers' ability to resume their visual search for a pre-cued hazard. , 2016, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[24]  Wolfgang Rosenstiel,et al.  Driver-Activity Recognition in the Context of Conditionally Autonomous Driving , 2015, 2015 IEEE 18th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems.

[25]  Scott V Masten,et al.  Crash and traffic violation rates before and after licensure for novice California drivers subject to different driver licensing requirements. , 2014, Journal of safety research.

[26]  Thomas C. Kübler,et al.  Online Recognition of Fixations, Saccades and Smooth Pursuits for Automated Analysis of Traffic Hazard Perception , 2015 .

[27]  David Crundall,et al.  Driver's visual attention as a function of driving experience and visibility. Using a driving simulator to explore drivers' eye movements in day, night and rain driving. , 2010, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[28]  David Crundall,et al.  Attending overtaking cars and motorcycles through the mirrors before changing lanes. , 2012, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[29]  Eleni I. Vlahogianni,et al.  Modeling duration of overtaking in two lane highways , 2013 .

[30]  Simone Benedetto,et al.  Driver workload and eye blink duration , 2011 .

[31]  Afshin Shariat Mohaymany,et al.  Identifying Driver Characteristics Influencing Overtaking Crashes , 2010, Traffic injury prevention.

[32]  William J. Horrey,et al.  The challenges and opportunities of technological approaches to fatigue management. , 2011, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[33]  Kathryn Chorlton,et al.  Could Intelligent Speed Adaptation make overtaking unsafe? , 2012, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[34]  David Crundall,et al.  Attraction and distraction of attention with roadside advertisements. , 2006, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[35]  W. Rosenstiel,et al.  Driving with Binocular Visual Field Loss? A Study on a Supervised On-Road Parcours with Simultaneous Eye and Head Tracking , 2014, PloS one.

[36]  Vicente Milanés Montero,et al.  Intelligent automatic overtaking system using vision for vehicle detection , 2012, Expert Syst. Appl..

[37]  Geoffrey Underwood,et al.  On-road behaviour of younger and older novices during the first six months of driving. , 2013, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[38]  David Shinar,et al.  The tendency of drivers to pass other vehicles , 2005 .

[39]  Alexander Pollatsek,et al.  Using Eye Movements to Evaluate a PC-Based Risk Awareness and Perception Training Program on a Driving Simulator , 2006, Hum. Factors.

[40]  David R. Large,et al.  Driving without wings: The effect of different digital mirror locations on the visual behaviour, performance and opinions of drivers. , 2016, Applied ergonomics.

[41]  Thomas C. Kübler,et al.  Stress-indicators and exploratory gaze for the analysis of hazard perception in patients with visual field loss. , 2014 .

[42]  David Crundall,et al.  Some hazards are more attractive than others: drivers of varying experience respond differently to different types of hazard. , 2012, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[43]  Shaun Helman,et al.  An experimental study of factors associated with driver frustration and overtaking intentions. , 2015, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[44]  D A M Twisk,et al.  Do young novice drivers overestimate their driving skills more than experienced drivers? Different methods lead to different conclusions. , 2011, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[45]  Jean Underwood,et al.  Driving Experience and Situation Awareness in Hazard Detection , 2013 .

[46]  Hai-Jun Huang,et al.  A new overtaking model and numerical tests , 2007 .

[47]  Jordi Casas,et al.  Development of a new microscopic passing maneuver model for two-lane rural roads , 2015 .

[48]  Lynne Hall,et al.  Visual information search in simulated junction negotiation: gaze transitions of young novice, young experienced and older experienced drivers. , 2013, Journal of safety research.

[49]  Matthew R E Romoser,et al.  Comparing the Glance Patterns of Older versus Younger Experienced Drivers: Scanning for Hazards while Approaching and Entering the Intersection. , 2013, Transportation research. Part F, Traffic psychology and behaviour.

[50]  David Crundall,et al.  The Driver Prioritisation Questionnaire: exploring drivers' self-report visual priorities in a range of driving scenarios. , 2008, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[51]  Yue Yu,et al.  Modeling and simulation of overtaking behavior involving environment , 2014, Adv. Eng. Softw..

[52]  Mohamed Abdel-Aty,et al.  Analysis and prediction of traffic fatalities resulting from angle collisions including the effect of vehicles' configuration and compatibility. , 2004, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[53]  Douglas W Harwood,et al.  Criteria for Passing Sight Distance for Roadway Design and Marking , 2010 .

[54]  Eleni I. Vlahogianni,et al.  Bayesian modeling of the microscopic traffic characteristics of overtaking in two-lane highways , 2012 .

[55]  Yongsheng Qian,et al.  Study on security features of freeway traffic flow with cellular automata model—Taking the number of overtake as an example , 2013 .