Abstract
There is currently much debate regarding the effectiveness of the driver license system in South Korea, due to the numerous traffic crashes caused by drivers who are suspected of having insufficient physical and mental abilities. Through the present system, it is quite difficult to identify such drivers indirectly through physical tests, such as visual acuity tests, since the correlation of such results with driving performance remains unclear. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between driving performance and visual acuities for improving the South Korean driver license system. In this study, two investigations were conducted: static and dynamic visual acuity examinations and driving performance tests based on a virtual reality (VR) system. The driving performance was evaluated with a driving simulator, based on driving behaviors in different experimental scenarios, including daytime and nighttime driving on a rural highway, and unexpected incident situations. Here, we produce statistically significant evidence that reduced visual acuity impairs driving performance, and driving behaviors differ significantly among groups with different vision capabilities, especially dynamic vision. Visual acuities, typically dynamic visual acuity, greatly influenced driving behavior, as measured by the standard deviation of speeds and vehicle LPs, and this was especially notable in curved road segments in daytime experiment. These experimental results revealed that the driving performance of participants with impaired dynamic visual acuity was deficient and unsafe. This confirmed that dynamic visual acuity levels are significant determinants of driving behavior, and they well explain driver performance levels. These findings suggest that the South Korean driver license system should include a test of dynamic visual acuity to create better and safer driving.
Highlights
Academic Editor: Inhi Kim ere is currently much debate regarding the effectiveness of the driver license system in South Korea, due to the numerous traffic crashes caused by drivers who are suspected of having insufficient physical and mental abilities. rough the present system, it is quite difficult to identify such drivers indirectly through physical tests, such as visual acuity tests, since the correlation of such results with driving performance remains unclear. e objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between driving performance and visual acuities for improving the South Korean driver license system
There have recently been many arguments regarding the effectiveness of the driver license system in South Korea, due to the many traffic crashes caused by drivers with insufficient physical and mental abilities. e current system in South Korea does not identify such drivers because some of the tests are rather cursory, such as vision and hearing tests
There is currently much debate regarding the effectiveness of the driver license system in South Korea, due to the many traffic crashes caused by drivers with insufficient physical and mental abilities [34,35,36,37,38,39]
Summary
It is generally known that drivers get most of the information they need to drive through vision [1], making vision the most important ability for driving. Burg investigated the relationship between visual acuity, driving violations, and traffic crashes in California, USA, and found a slight correlation among them [9], and a similar analysis [10] indicated that measures of visual performance, such as static and dynamic visual acuity, correlated significantly with the crash rate of drivers over the age of 54. In another related study of the visual acuity levels (static and dynamic) of 12,400 drivers and their traffic crashes and law violations, it was found that drivers over the age of 66 had a higher risk of crashes [11]. Erefore, more precise methods to measure visual acuities should be developed, and studies to investigate the relationship between visual acuity and driving performance need to be conducted
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