Driving Behavior Differences among Early Licensed Teen, Novice Teen, and Experienced Drivers in Simulator and Real World Potential Hazards

摘要

Age and driving experience play a critical role in the vehicle control and eye movement behaviors of drivers subjected to hazardous environments. This study investigates whether significant differences exist in vehicle control and eye movement behaviors among drivers of different age and experience groups while driving in a simulator and through real world potential hazards. Three groups of drivers were studied: "novice teen," "early licensed teen" and "experienced adult" drivers, consisting of five participants each and having driving experience of about 6 months, 2 years and 10 years, respectively. The subjects were asked to drive through four potentially hazardous scenarios in the simulator and in the real world, namely a left-turning truck ahead, a mid-block crosswalk, a hidden crosswalk, and curved stop ahead. Indicators measured for eye movement were eye gaze rotation for simulator and eye gaze direction for the real world. In the simulator drive, measured parameters for vehicle control analysis were speed, lateral and longitudinal acceleration, lane deviation and braking force. Those for the real world were speed, accelerator pedal angle and braking force. The results indicated that different driving conditions in the simulator did not have a major effect on the eye movement behavior of the participants. However, different eye movement behavior was evident, both in the simulator and the real world drive, between the "experienced" and "early licensed teen" driver group at the scenario "curved stop ahead". Significant differences in the vehicle control behavior between these two groups were also observed under specific circumstances.