Prediction and perception of hazards in professional drivers: Does hazard perception skill differ between safe and less-safe fire-appliance drivers?

The development and validation of a Japanese hazard perception task

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to validate the hazard perception task developed for Japanese drivers with brain damage.

METHODS

A total of 36 professional driving instructors, 67 older adult drivers, 39 young drivers, and 72 patients with brain damage participated in the study. A video-based hazard perception task measured the hazard perception skills of each group. Participants were instructed to touch the screen as soon as they identified a hazard. Outcome measures included the number of hazards identified and response latency. Comparisons were made between groups for each hazard type: environmental prediction hazard (EPH) and behavioral prediction hazard (BPH).

RESULTS

Patients with brain damage demonstrated fewer hazard detections and longer response latencies than driving instructors and older adult drivers, regardless of the hazard type. The hazard perception skills of patients with brain damage were comparable to those of young drivers across both hazard types. Driving instructors exhibited the highest number of hazard detections and the fastest response latencies among all groups, with differences being more pronounced for EPH than for BPH.

CONCLUSIONS

Thus, the validity of the hazard perception task developed for Japanese drivers with brain damage was confirmed. Future research should examine the predictive validity of the developed task, particularly its relationship with crash rates in individuals with brain damage.

EEG and fNIRS are associated with situation awareness (hazard) prediction during a driving task

Situation awareness (SA) is important in many demanding tasks (e.g. driving). Assessing SA during training can indicate whether someone is ready to perform in the real world. SA is typically assessed by interrupting the task to ask questions about the situation or asking questions after task completion, assessing only momentary SA. An objective and continuous means of detecting SA is needed. We examined whether neurophysiological sensors are useful to objectively measure Level 3 SA (projection of events into the future) during a driving task. We measured SA by the speed at which participants responded to SA questions and the accuracy of responses. For EEG, beta and theta power were most sensitive to SA response time. For fNIRS, oxygenated haemoglobin (HbO) was most sensitive to accuracy. This is the first evidence to our knowledge that neurophysiological measures are useful for assessing Level 3 SA during an ecologically valid task.

Development of hazard prediction test and interventions for two-wheeled electric vehicle riders in China

OBJECTIVE

This paper aimed to develop a hazard prediction test and enhance two-wheeled electric vehicle (TWEV) riders' hazard perception and prediction capabilities via interventions by executing two distinct studies. Study 1 aimed to develop and validate a hazard prediction test. Study 2 evaluated the efficacy of two interventions, self-commentary and what happens next (WHN), integrating expert commentary.

METHOD

For Study 1, a video-based hazard prediction test was developed through video recording and clipping, with participants categorized into high and low prediction ability groups for experimentation. Data analysis employed the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Study 2 categorized participants into four groups: self-commentary with licenses (SCL), self-commentary without licenses (SCNL), WHN with licenses (WHNL), and WHN without licenses (WHNNL), for conducting a one-week intervention experiment. Data collected from participants' pre-intervention, post-intervention, and aftereffect tests were subjected to repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA).

RESULTS

Analysis of the ROC curve indicated the test can distinguish the riders with different hazard prediction levels. ANOVA results demonstrated that the measurement time had a significant positive effect on scores (p < 0.001). Both interventions significantly improved hazard prediction ability (p < 0.05), and the effect persisted one week after administration. The effect of the WHN intervention was significantly greater than the self-commentary method across all time points.

CONCLUSION

The hazard prediction test developed in this study could assess riders' hazard prediction ability, with the identified interventions demonstrating effectiveness in enhancing this ability. These findings suggested potential application in future qualification tests for TWEV riders, contributing to enhanced traffic safety awareness among TWEV riders in China, thus advancing overall traffic safety.

Understanding level of Chinese traffic signage among children aged 7-11 years: A pilot study

Road traffic injuries are one of the main causes of death among children. In recent years, the incidence and casualty rates of traffic accidents have increased year by year, which is a major challenge faced by safety organizations and governments in various countries, especially in developing countries. Among them, correct understanding of road traffic signs is a factor in reducing accidents. Therefore, identifying traffic signs has become an important indicator of road safety education. This study aimed to understand the understanding level of existing road traffic signs among Chinese children aged 7-11. 30 children aged 7-11 from Guangzhou participated in this study. The working title "Traffic Signage understanding Test questionnaire" was used as the tool for data collection. The questionnaire measured three aspects of child road users' understanding, including verbal label, action and consequences. Three experts in child psychology and cognition reviewed the questionnaire and validated its face and content. The survey results show that compared with actions and consequences, children have a lower understanding of verbal labels of signs, but overall, most children understand traffic signs incorrectly or do not understand them. This is statistically significant in reducing China's road traffic casualty rate. It is also recommended to design traffic signs that are suitable for children to understand.

Hazard perception training effectiveness on experienced drivers: decay of improvement in the follow-up

A variety of road hazard perception training programmes have been proposed recently, based on the assumption that these skills contribute to lower crash rates across different countries. However, the long-term effectiveness of suggested programmes has been under-investigated. The main objective of this study is to explore the long-term effectiveness of online hazard perception training for experienced drivers and examine the moderating role of driving self-efficacy. Fifty-six experienced drivers (21 males and 35 females) were assigned to the experimental (n = 31) or the control (n = 25) group. The experimental group received two 45 min session interventions; the control group received no intervention. The effectiveness of the programme was tested by the change in scores of Lithuanian hazard prediction test (HPT) LHP12 that was conducted before training (pre-test), immediately after training (post-test) and six months after training (follow-up). The twelve-item Adelaide Driving Self-Efficacy Scale (ADSES; George et al., 2007) was used to measure self-reported driving self-efficacy at the pre-test. The results revealed a significant increase in hazard prediction scores immediately after training, but the short-term effect of training decayed at follow-up. Experienced drivers with higher self-efficacy developed better hazard prediction skills during training. The results confirmed short-term effectiveness of the programme.

The relationship between central and mid-peripheral motion perception and the hazard perception test in younger and older adults

INTRODUCTION

Vision standards for driving are typically based on visual acuity, despite evidence that it is a poor predictor of driving safety and performance. However, visual motion perception is potentially relevant for driving, as the vehicle and surroundings are in motion. This study explored whether tests of central and mid-peripheral motion perception better predict performance on a hazard perception test (HPT), which is related to driving performance and crash risk, than visual acuity. Additionally, we explored whether age influences these associations, as healthy ageing impairs performance on some motion sensitivity tests.

METHODS

Sixty-five visually healthy drivers (35 younger, mean age: 25.5; SD 4.3 years; 30 older adults, mean age: 71.0; SD 5.4 years) underwent a computer-based HPT, plus four different motion sensitivity tests both centrally and at 15° eccentricity. Motion tests included minimum displacement to identify motion direction (Dmin ), contrast detection threshold for a drifting Gabor (motion contrast), coherence threshold for a translational global motion stimulus and direction discrimination for a biological motion stimulus in the presence of noise.

RESULTS

Overall, HPT reaction times were not significantly different between age groups (p = 0.40) nor were maximum HPT reaction times (p = 0.34). HPT response time was associated with motion contrast and Dmin centrally (r = 0.30, p = 0.02 and r = 0.28, p = 0.02, respectively) and with Dmin peripherally (r = 0.34, p = 0.005); these associations were not affected by age group. There was no significant association between binocular visual acuity and HPT response times (r = 0.02, p = 0.29).

CONCLUSIONS

Some measures of motion sensitivity in central and mid-peripheral vision were associated with HPT response times, whereas binocular visual acuity was not. Peripheral testing did not show an advantage over central testing for visually healthy older drivers. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence that the ability to detect small motion changes may have potential to identify unsafe road users.

Development of a hazard prediction test for Chinese cyclists and its association with crash involvement

Introduction

Hazard perception is the ability to sense the road environment and predict and respond to the upcoming dangerous events, and this factor is closely related to cyclists' crash involvement. However, due to a lack of valid instruments, studies concerning the hazard predictions and crashes of cyclists in China remain limited. This study attempted to develop a hazard prediction test for cyclists.

Method

The experiment presented 44 video clips filmed from cyclists' perspectives to 61 children aged 13-16 years and 119 adults aged 18-30 years. After the video clip displayed a black screen, participants were asked to answer the following questions: "What is the hazard?" (question 1), "Where is the hazard?" (question 2), and "What happens next?" (question 3). The differences in test scores between cyclists with high and low levels of experience, cyclists of different ages, and crash-involved and noncrash-involved cyclists were compared to examine the validity of the test.

Results

The final test contained 21 video clips and the internal consistency reliabilities of the three questions were satisfactory. Experienced cyclists are better able to identify and predict hazards than are cyclists with less experience, and adult cyclists have better hazard prediction abilities than child cyclists. More importantly, crash-involved cyclists receiving lower scores with respect to their ability to identify and predict hazards than noncrash-involved cyclists, thus indicating that the discriminant validity of the test was acceptable.

Practical applications

This newly-developed test exhibits acceptable reliability and validity and can be used as an effective tool to measure the hazard prediction abilities of cyclists with different ages and levels of experience in China. The natural driving videos and test in the study may hold promise for future practical applications, and the implications for road safety are discussed.

An online hazard prediction test demonstrates differences in the ability to identify hazardous situations between different driving groups

Previous research has found that the traditional approach to measuring hazard perception, as used by the UK Government, does not necessarily transfer well to other countries. The speeded response times of a hazard perception test were susceptible to threshold bias, differentiating drivers according to cultural background more than driving experience. An alternative method - the hazard prediction test - appears to mitigate these problems when used across different countries. The current study applies the hazard prediction methodology to a new cultural context (Israel), delivered via an online platform. A further innovation was to include both hazardous and non-hazardous trials allowing measures of criterion and sensitivity parameters of the Signal Detection Theory to be calculated.In total, 74 participants (43 experienced and 31 novices) watched 26 hazard prediction clips that had been filmed in Tel Aviv (Israel), 13 of which contained cues to genuine hazards. Each hazardous clip was occluded prior to the hazardous situation fully materialising, though with sufficient evidence that any participant who was looking in the right place at the right time would be able to correctly identify the unfolding hazard. Participants were first asked to identify whether there was a hazard (a binary decision), and then to predict how the traffic situation was going to develop by choosing one of four options provided after each video.As hypothesised, experienced drivers outperformed novices in the multiple-choice prediction question, provided that they had correctly identified that the clip contained a hazard in the first question. Novices were poor at selecting the correct multiple-choice option, regardless of whether they correctly identified that the clip contained a hazard. Both driving experience and hazard sensitivity significantly predicted multiple-choice accuracy, though criterion did not. The newly developed online test was successful in differentiating between experienced and novice driver groups for accuracy in prediction. These results support the roll-out of the hazard prediction methodology across different countries. Practitioner summary: This study provides new insights into how to develop an online hazard prediction test suitable for international export. The results suggest that this newly developed test is successful in differentiating between experienced and novice drivers. This raises the possibilit y of assessing and training drivers on a global scale.

Correlations among self-report, static image, and video-based hazard perception assessments: The validity of a new Lithuanian hazard prediction test

Scholars suggest that improving hazard perception (HP) skills among different road users can lead to safer driving. To this end, a small number of countries have developed a national hazard perception test for their licensing procedures. The purpose of the current research is to develop and validate a new video-based hazard prediction test for the Lithuanian driving context. Eighty-eight drivers participated in the study. Initially, 25 naturalistic clips were included and edited into a hazard prediction test following the "what happens next?" paradigm. The overall score of the test was higher for experienced drivers when compared with novices. On further inspection the overall group difference was driven by 12 clips. The Lithuanian Hazard Perception test HPT-LIT featuring static images (Tūskė et al., 2019) and Hazard Perception Questionnaire developed by White et al. (2011) were used to validate the new test. This new version of the test (12 clips, LHP₁₂) showed acceptable psychometric properties. Drivers with less driving experience demonstrated poorer hazard prediction skills than experienced drivers. The results revealed a negative correlation between hazard prediction scores on LHP₁₂ and crash involvement in the novice driver group, as well as a positive correlation between prediction scores and self-reported hazard prediction skills. It was concluded that the new Lithuanian hazard test shows potential for future research.

Identifying objective behavioural measures of expert driver situation awareness

Efforts to reduce road crash rates depend on a clear understanding of the factors that contribute to driver risk. Not all drivers are at equivalent risk. It is critical to identify the factors that contribute to the development of expertise in the driving environment. The rapid development of a driver's situation awareness (SA) is central to the safe performance of the driving task. Therefore, SA must be clearly operationalised in order to better assess its role in the development of expertise. This study employs an existing scheme based on the Perceptual Cycle Model (PCM) used for post hoc incident analysis and adapts it to the driving context. We attempted to correlate performance on coded verbalisations indicative of SA with non-invasive objective gaze metrics. Gaze metrics and the verbal counts were shown to differentiate between both expert and experienced (non-expert) drivers, but these measures failed to correlate with one another. Findings indicate differences in the way expert and experienced drivers update their schema of the driving task, with equivalent effort required to do so. The novel adaptation demonstrated in this paper allows for a domain-specific assessment of SA which reliably differentiates between drivers of varying expertise levels. Although selected gaze metrics were shown to be inadequate predictors of SA, additional analysis demonstrated key differences in gaze content. Combined, these findings enhance an understanding of expert SA development contributing to reduced crash risk.

A comparison of cybersickness symptoms across 360-degree hazard perception and hazard prediction tests for drivers

Hazard perception assessment may benefit from VR-presentation by removing field-of-view restrictions imposed by single-screen tests. One concern is whether VR-induced 'cybersickness' will offset any benefits. Self-reported cybersickness ratings were recorded from 77 participants viewing two variants of a 360-degree hazard test: hazard perception and hazard prediction. The latter was hypothesised to be particularly susceptible as clips abruptly cut to a probe question at hazard onset. Such sudden occlusions are thought to increase cybersickness. Overall cybersickness levels were low, with only four participants excluded for above-threshold sickness ratings. The remaining participants showed unexpectedly lower symptoms for the hazard prediction test and rated this test format as more comfortable and engaging. These findings mitigate concerns over the use of 360-degree videos in formative hazard assessments, even when clips involve sudden occlusions. Nonetheless, removal of any participants due to cybersickness raises problems for using VR for formal assessments of hazard perception skill.

Mental fatigue delays visual search behaviour in young cyclists when negotiating complex traffic situations: A study in virtual reality

INTRODUCTION

Mental fatigue has been shown to negatively affect motor and sport performance. To date, however, no research focused on assessing the effects of mental fatigue on hazard perception in young cyclists who are highly vulnerable in traffic, especially after school. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the influence of induced mental fatigue on hazard perception and anticipation in young cyclists using a novel Virtual Reality bicycle simulator.

METHODS

In this randomised, counterbalanced, cross-over investigation, forty-eight young cyclists cycled through a Virtual Environment (VE) in which they were confronted with eight simple and six complex traffic situations. Simple traffic situations are considered events including only one other actor can cause a dangerous situation while complex traffic situations include multiple actors than contribute to the dangerous situation. Half of the children were mentally fatigued using the Stroop colour-word task while the other half immediately started the VR hazard perception test. On the second test occasion, one month later, the other half of the group was mentally fatigued.

RESULTS

The results demonstrate that mentally fatigued cyclists fixated the relevant areas of interest (AOIs) in the simple and complex later and showed delayed response times for the complex hazards. Mental fatigue, however, did not alter the speed with which participants cycled through the virtual environment and did not change the hazard perception score.

CONCLUSION

To our knowledge, this was the first study to investigate the effect of mental fatigue in young cyclists with an innovative VR hazard perception simulator. Due to increased mental fatigue, young cyclists might have experienced more episodes of fatigue-related mind-wandering and a deterioration of selective attention for the task at hand. This resulted in a less thorough visual inspection of the scene and delayed braking responses.

A novel driving assessment combining hazard perception, hazard prediction and theory questions

A new hazard test was created using high-fidelity computer animation containing ten hazards. Sixty learner drivers and sixty experienced drivers sat either a hazard-perception version of this test (requiring timed responses to materialized hazards) or a hazard-prediction variant of the test (where the screen is occluded as the hazard begins to appear and drivers are asked 'What happens next?'). Recent studies have demonstrated that the prediction test format outperforms the hazard perception format using naturalistic video, but there has not yet been a study replicating this effect with computer-animated materials similar to the quality of those used in the official UK hazard perception test. The new test also included eleven theory questions designed to probe drivers' knowledge of the rules of the road. The results demonstrated that both test variants differentiated between driver groups with considerable effect sizes. Theory-question scores were comparable across learner and experienced driver groups, reflecting learners' preparation for the test and possible issues with memory decay and overwriting in the experienced group. As an interesting aside, driving-related video game play negatively correlated with hazard perception performance, but not with hazard prediction scores. Some individual hazards better suited the prediction or perception test format, raising the possibility of a future hybrid test that combines the two approaches.

Hazard Perception and Prediction test for walking, riding a bike and driving a car: "Understanding of the global traffic situation"

To "put oneself in the place of other road users" may improve understanding of the global traffic situation. It should be useful enabling drivers to anticipate and detect obstacles in time to prevent accidents to other road users, especially those most vulnerable. We created a pioneering Hazard Perception and Prediction test to explore this skill in different road users (pedestrians, cyclists and drivers), with videos recorded in naturalistic scenarios: walking, riding a bicycle and driving a car. There were 79 participants (30 pedestrians, 14 cyclists, 13 novice drivers and 22 experienced drivers). Sixty videos of hazardous traffic situations were presented, divided into 2 blocks of 30 videos each: 10 walking, 10 riding a bicycle, 10 driving a car. In each situation presented, we evaluated the performance of the participants carrying out the task of predicting the hazard and estimating the risk. In the second block, after they had carried out the task, we gave them feedback on their performance and let them see the whole video (i.e., checking what happened next). The results showed that the holistic test had acceptable psychometric properties (Cronbach's alpha = .846). The test was able to discriminate between the different conditions manipulated: a) between traffic hazards recorded from different perspectives: walking, riding a bicycle and driving a car; b) between participants with different user profiles: pedestrians, cyclists and drivers; c) between the two test blocks: the first evaluation only and the second combining evaluation with this complex intervention. We found modal bias effects in both Hazard Perception and Prediction; and in Risk Estimation.

Fifty Years of Accident Analysis & Prevention: A Bibliometric and Scientometric Overview

Accident Analysis & Prevention (AA&P) is a leading academic journal established in 1969 that serves as an important scientific communication platform for road safety studies. To celebrate its 50^th anniversary of publishing outstanding and insightful studies, a multi-dimensional statistical and visualized analysis of the AA&P publications between 1969 and 2018 was performed using the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection database, bibliometrics and mapping-knowledge-domain (MKD) analytical methods, and scientometric tools. It was shown that the annual number of AA&P's publications has grown exponentially and that over the course of its development, AA&P has been a leader in the field of road safety, both in terms of innovation and dissemination. By determining its key source countries and organizations, core authors, highly co-cited published documents, and high burst-strength publications, we showed that AA&P's areas of focus include the "effects of hazard and risk perception on driving behavior", "crash frequency modeling analysis", "intentional driving violations and aberrant driving behavior", "epidemiology, assessment and prevention of road traffic injuries", and "crash-injury severity modeling analysis". Furthermore, the key burst papers that have played an important role in advancing research and guiding AA&P in new directions - particularly those in the fields of crash frequency and crash-injury severity modeling analyses were identified. Finally, a modified Haddon matrix in the era of intelligent, connected and autonomous transportation systems is proposed to provide new insights into the emerging generation of road safety studies.

Creating a hazard-based training and assessment tool for emergency response drivers

Emergency response drivers (ERDs) are often required to engage in high-risk driving manoeuvres on their way to a reported incident. Such risk requires that these drivers receive a high-level of training and continued development. The aim of this paper was to investigate an innovative format for a new potential tool that could support the training and assessment of these drivers: a single-clip Holistic Hazard Test, containing multiple hazards in a single route. In study one, we created a proof-of-concept 15-minute clip containing hazards, multiple-choice questions and probes to collect self-reported safety ratings. ERDs were more accurate on the multiple-choice questions (MCQs) than a control group, though response time scores to hazards did not reach the threshold for significance. In study two, we refined the development process and created a series of new holistic hazard tests across four counties of the East Midlands, UK. Each test contained many hazards and MCQs that assessed situation awareness and decision-making, based on the results of study 1. Participants were recruited across the four counties and were presented with both the test that was specific to their county and one of the unfamiliar-location tests, in order to assess the generalisability of the tests across different locales. The results showed no differences regarding location familiarity, suggesting that tests filmed in one area of the country can be viewed by drivers elsewhere without detriment to performance. ERDs once again responded to MCQs more accurately, and also scored more hazard points on the basis of faster responses to hazards compared to control participants. These results suggest such tests can successfully tap into ERD-specific skills with regard to spotting, predicting and responding to hazards on the road. We recommend refinement of this tool for assessment of emergency response drivers, and further development to extend the materials to create a training tool.

A comparison of hazard perception and hazard prediction tests across China, Spain and the UK

Hazard perception (HP) is the ability to spot on-road hazards in time to avoid a collision. This skill is traditionally measured by recording response times to hazards in video clips of driving, with safer, experienced drivers often out-performing inexperienced drivers. This study assessed whether HP test performance is culturally specific by comparing Chinese, Spanish and UK drivers who watched clips filmed in all three countries. Two test-variants were created: a traditional HP test (requiring timed hazard responses), and a hazard prediction test, where the film is occluded at hazard-onset and participants predict what happens next. More than 300 participants, across the 3 countries, were divided into experienced and inexperienced-driver groups. The traditional HP test did not discriminate between experienced and inexperienced drivers, though participant nationality influenced the results with UK drivers reporting more hazards than Chinese drivers. The hazard prediction test, however, found experienced drivers to out-perform inexperienced drivers. No differences were found for nationality, with all nationalities being equally skilled at predicting hazards. The results suggest that drivers' criterion level for responding to hazards is culturally sensitive, though their ability to predict hazards is not. We argue that the more robust, culturally-agnostic, hazard prediction test appears better suited for global export.