Influence of Age and Proximity Warning Devices on Collision Avoidance in Simulated Driving

Abstract

We conducted a set of experiments to examine the utility of several different uni- and multimodal collision avoidance systems (CASs) on driving performance of young and older adult drivers in a high-fidelity simulator. Although previous research has examined the efficacy of different CASs on collision avoidance, there has been a dearth of studies that have examined such devices in different driving situations with different populations of drivers. Several different CAS warnings were examined in varying traffic and collision configurations both without (Experiment 1a) and with (Experiment 2) a distracting in-vehicle task. Overall, collision avoidance performance for both potential forward and side object collisions was best for an auditory/visual CAS, which alerted drivers using both modalities. Interestingly, older drivers (60-82 years of age) benefited as much as younger drivers from the CAS, and sometimes they benefited more. These data suggest that CASs can be beneficial across a number of different driving scenarios, types of collisions, and driver populations. These results have important implications for the design and implementation of CASs for different driver populations and driving conditions.