The role of legal and moral norms to regulate the behavior of texting while driving

Despite a nationwide lawful effort to regulate texting-while-driving behavior, little change has been reported. This study assessed the effect of current legal enforcement on attitudinal and behavioral responses toward texting while driving in conjunction with potential influences of two types of perceived norms—legal and moral. An online survey was conducted with 313 college students recruited from three states where the history of a banning law of texting while driving varied (more than 3 years, less than 1 year, and none). The students self-reported perceived legal norm, perceived moral norm, perceived risk of texting while driving, frequency of texting while driving, attitude toward texting while driving, and intention of texting while driving. General linear model analyses revealed that the mere presence of legal enforcement showed a negative relationship with frequency of behavior only for the state with the banning law in effect more than 3 years. While the perceived legal norm showed inconsistent relationships with outcome variables, the perceived moral norm appeared most promising to discourage texting while driving among young drivers. A banning law for texting-while-driving behavior not only backfired on the actual behavior in a short-term effect, but also required a long-term exposure of the law to change the actual behavior among college students. On the other hand, cultivation of a moral norm to regulate the behavior of texting while driving is particularly encouraged in that the stable nature of this psychological variable can play a role to suppress possible reactance evoked by an external force. Policy makers are encouraged to harness their approach to regulate young drivers’ texting while driving with the strategy that appeals to the drivers’ moral beliefs rather than simply forcing them to comply with the law.     

Improving Fitness to Drive: The Case for Hazard Perception Training

On one hand, individuals who are unfit to drive should not be allowed behind the wheel. On the other hand, being unable to drive can have significant negative consequences for some individuals, including an increased mortality risk. One potential solution to this dilemma is to use training interventions to improve fitness‐to‐drive. The problem is that, in general, post‐licensing driver training and education has a disappointing track record in terms of improving road safety. However, one type of intervention that may have the potential to buck this trend is hazard perception training. Hazard perception, which is the driver's ability to anticipate dangerous situations on the road ahead, has been found to predict both crash risk and on‐road driving performance, and can account for variance in both of these criteria that other key fitness‐to‐drive measures cannot. Crucially, there is evidence that hazard perception competence can be improved by brief computer‐based interventions, even for driver groups who are more likely to face fitness‐to‐drive challenges, such as individuals aged over 65 years or adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This article puts the case for potentially using such interventions to help individuals with fitness‐to‐drive difficulties.     

Drinking patterns and drunk-driving behaviour in Catalonia,Spain: A comparative study

This study explores three alcohol-related databases so as to provide a comprehensive understanding of drinking patterns and the prevalence of alcohol-impaired driving in Catalonia (Spain). The rate of alcohol-impaired drivers is compared with the percentage of drinkers in this population, with a particular focus on heavy episodic drinkers. Two strategies adopted by law enforcement agents when conducting alcohol breath tests are examined: (i) non-random and (ii) random approaches to roadblock location and driver selection. We find that heavy drinker profiles (in terms of age and gender) closely match those of alcohol-impaired drivers detected at strategically located, non-random sobriety checkpoints (especially in the case of female drivers), and that they also correlate with the age-gender distribution of drivers involved in road accidents with victims. Different drink driving patterns are detected when sobriety checkpoints are located randomly and drivers are tested at random. Older drivers are identified as a risk group as they abandon the safer driving habits in relation to alcohol shown when they were middle-aged. A combination of non-random and random controls would increase driver perception of their chances of being detected when drink driving. As such, the whole population, regardless of their drinking profile, would be alerted to the serious personal, social and legal implications of alcohol-impaired driving.     

The influence of public self-consciousness and anger on aggressive driving

This study examined how anger interacted with public self-consciousness to influence aggressive driving. It was hypothesized that when people were angry, more aggressive driving behavior would occur when public self-consciousness was low than when public self-consciousness was high. To test this hypothesis the participants were required to complete measures of driving anger and public self-consciousness. Then participants gave a retrospective self-report of aggressive driving behavior. Further, participants were required to keep a log in which they recorded aggressive driving behavior. The results supported the prediction. Public self-consciousness interacted with anger to influence aggression while driving.     

The Driving Anger Expression Inventory: A Validity Study with Community College Student Drivers

This study explored the relationship of driving anger expression to driving anger, trait anger, general anger expression, and aggressive and risky behavior while driving. Verbal, physical, and vehicular forms of expressing anger while driving correlated positively with each other, driving and trait anger, anger-in, and anger-out and negatively with adaptive/constructive driving anger expression and general anger-control. Adaptive/constructive expression formed small negative correlations with these measures, except for a positive correlation with anger-control. Regression models controlling for demographic variables and driving anger, trait anger, or general anger expression demonstrated forms of driving anger expression added variance to predicting aggressive and risky behavior. Forms of driving anger expression partially mediated the effects for driving anger, trait anger, and general anger expression on aggressive and risky behavior. No moderation effects were found for age, gender, or miles driven. Findings provided evidence for convergent and incremental validity for the Driving Anger Expression Inventory.     

Characterising mobile phone calls while driving on limited-access roads based on SHRP 2 naturalistic driving data

Research has found that mobile phone call engagement while driving negatively affects driving performance. However, no studies exist characterising hand-held mobile phone calls while driving under naturalistic conditions that include aspects such as the duration of mobile phone subtasks and glance behaviour. Identifying the particularly distracting phases of hand-held telephoning and the nature of influencing factors are the basis for developing design recommendations (e.g. for an in-vehicle information system). Potential influencing factors on driving performance such as call type, mobile phone storage location, or any self-regulatory behaviour need to be taken into account. The present study aimed to draw a comprehensive picture of making hand-held mobile phone calls while driving on limited-access roads using SHRP 2 naturalistic driving data. Mobile phone phase duration, glance behaviour, call type, and mobile phone storage location were coded manually across 98 events. The results show that the handling phase of a mobile phone call (e.g. searching for contacts, dialling) was the most dangerous due to longer mean off- than on-road glances. Outgoing calls caused longer mean off-road glances than incoming; nevertheless, the 2 s critical threshold was not exceeded. A significant influence of mobile phone storage location on glance behaviour did not exist. Moreover, at least in free-flow driving conditions, drivers had enough spare capacity to conduct a mobile phone call without reducing vehicle speed. The results suggest that in low complexity traffic situations drivers can compensate for the increased driving task demand due to telephoning by making minor changes in glance behaviour.     

Driver glance behavior towards displayed images on in-vehicle information systems under real driving conditions

Intelligent vehicle technologies like driver assistance systems and in-vehicle information systems, enhance convenience of the driving experience for drivers and passengers. At the same time, these systems may increase driver distraction and workload. Guidelines developed for this purpose include principles, methods, and assessments which are widely agreed upon, with some being singled out for a particular recommendation or requirement. Especially the display of graphical or photographic images are generally assumed to distract the driver from safely operating the vehicle and should be blocked during driving under all circumstances (so called per se lock outs). This study investigates the effect of displaying graphical and photographical images during driving on driveŕs glance behavior during real-world driving. Findings presented in this paper provide empirical evidence for the unobtrusiveness of these stimuli: Participants didn’t exhibit longer glance durations towards in-vehicle information systems, nor a deterioration of driver distraction parameters such as total eyes off road time and long glance proportion when being compared to driving without displaying any photographic images.     

After you?! – Use of external human-machine interfaces in road bottleneck scenarios

In the near future, automated vehicles (AVs) will enter the urban transport system. This fact will lead to mixed traffic consisting of AVs, human car drivers and vulnerable road users. Since the AV’s passenger no longer has to monitor the driving scene, conventional communication does not exist anymore, which is essential for traffic efficiency and safety. In research, there are plenty of studies focusing on how AVs could communicate with pedestrians. One approach is to use external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs) on the AV’s surface. In contrast to the studies dealing with AV-pedestrian communication, this paper focuses on communication strategies of AVs with drivers of regular vehicles in different road bottleneck scenarios. The eHMI development and design is building on previously defined requirements and on fundamentals of human visual perception. After designing several eHMI drafts, we conducted a user survey with 29 participants resulting in the final eHMI concept. The evaluation of the evolved eHMI was conducted in a driving simulator experiment with 43 participants investigating the AV-human driver interaction at road bottlenecks. The participants were assigned either to the experimental group being faced with the eHMI or to the baseline group without explicit communication. The results show significantly shorter passing times and fewer crashes among the human drivers in the group with the eHMI. Additionally, the paper researches the aftereffects of an automation failure, where the AV first yields the right of way and then changes its strategy and insisted on priority. Experiencing the automation failure is reflected in increased passing times, reduced acceptance ratings and a lower perceived usefulness. In conclusion, especially in unregulated bottleneck scenarios flawless communication via eHMIs increases traffic efficiency and safety.     

Take over! A video-clip study measuring attention,situation awareness,and decision-making in the face of an impending hazard

In highly automated driving, drivers occasionally need to take over control of the car due to limitations of the automated driving system. Research has shown that visually distracted drivers need about 7 s to regain situation awareness (SA). However, it is unknown whether the presence of a hazard affects SA. In the present experiment, 32 participants watched animated video clips from a driver’s perspective while their eyes were recorded using eye-tracking equipment. The videos had lengths between 1 and 20 s and contained either no hazard or an impending crash in the form of a stationary car in the ego lane. After each video, participants had to (1) decide (no need to take over, evade left, evade right, brake only), (2) rate the danger of the situation, (3) rebuild the situation from a top-down perspective, and (4) rate the difficulty of the rebuilding task. The results showed that the hazard situations were experienced as more dangerous than the non-hazard situations, as inferred from self-reported danger and pupil diameter. However, there were no major differences in SA: hazard and non-hazard situations yielded equivalent speed and distance errors in the rebuilding task and equivalent self-reported difficulty scores. An exception occurred for the shortest time budget (1 s) videos, where participants showed impaired SA in the hazard condition, presumably because the threat inhibited participants from looking into the rear-view mirror. Correlations between measures of SA and decision-making accuracy were low to moderate. It is concluded that hazards do not substantially affect the global awareness of the traffic situation, except for short time budgets.