The Long and Winding Road: 25 Years of the National Advanced Driving Simulator.

The National Advanced Driving Simulator is a high-fidelity motion-base simulator owned by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and managed and operated by the University of Iowa. Its 25-year history has intersected with some of the most significant developments in automotive history, such as advanced driver assistance systems like stability control and collision warning systems, and highly automated vehicles. The simulator is an application of immersive virtual reality that uses multiprojection instead of head-mounted displays.

Quantifying and recommending seat belt reminder timing using naturalistic driving video data.

Introduction: To better understand the timing of when people buckle their seat belt, an analysis of a naturalistic driving study was used. The study provided a unique perspective inside of the vehicle where the entire seat belt was visible from the time the driver entered the vehicle to one minute of driving forward or 32 kph.

Method: Seat belt buckling behavior was identified for 30 drivers.

Mechanisms of cannabis impairment: Implications for modeling driving performance.

Past research on cannabis has been limited in scope to THC potencies lower than legally available and efforts to integrate the effects into models of driving performance have not been attempted to date. The purpose of this systematic review is to understand the implications for modeling driving performance and describe future research needs. The risk of motor vehicle crashes increases 2-fold after smoking marijuana.

Examining the Association Between Age and Tractor Driving Performance Measures Using a High-Fidelity Tractor Driving Simulator.

HIGHLIGHTS This study uses a new tractor driving simulator to examine the impact of age on perception response time in an emergency braking situation. The results demonstrate increased risk for crash among older farm equipment operators. ABSTRACT.

Examination of Realism in a High-fidelity Tractor Driving Simulator.

Transportation-related incidents are the leading cause of occupational fatalities for all industries in the U.S., including the agricultural industry, which suffers thou- sands of crashes involving farm equipment each year.

Classifying and predicting risky driving among novice drivers: A group-based trajectory approach.

Introduction: Classifying risky driving among new teenage drivers is important for efficiently targeting driving interventions. We thoroughly investigated whether novice drivers can be clustered by their driving outcome profiles over time.

Methods: A sample of 51 newly licensed teen drivers was recruited and followed over a period of 20 weeks.

Auditory Global Positioning System and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems: A Safer Alternative to Bioptic Telescopes for Drivers Who Are Visually Impaired?

This work challenges the standard of the past 40 years, which required the use of a bioptic telescope by individuals with vision loss wanting to be licensed to drive in most states in the United States.Driving continues to be the key to independence for many individuals, particularly older drivers who live in an area where public transportation is limited or nonexistent. For the past 40 years, the most frequently option to allow drivers who are visually impaired to maintain driving privileges was to require them to use a bioptic telescope.

Teen driver system modeling: a tool for policy analysis.

Background: Motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of teen deaths in spite of preventive efforts. Prevention strategies could be advanced through new analytic approaches that allow us to better conceptualize the complex processes underlying teen crash risk. This may help policymakers design appropriate interventions and evaluate their impacts.

Examining teen driver crashes and the prevalence of distraction: Recent trends, 2007-2015.

Introduction: Teen drivers crash at a much higher rate than adult drivers, with distractions found as a factor in nearly 6 out of 10 moderate-to-severe teen crashes. As the driving environment continues to rapidly evolve, it is important to examine the effect these changes may be having on our youngest and most vulnerable drivers.

Method: The purpose of this study was to identify types of vehicle crashes teens are most frequently involved in, as well as the distracting activities being engaged in leading up to these crashes, with a focus on identifying changes or trends over time.

Evaluating variability in foot to pedal movements using functional principal components analysis.

There are reasons why the driver's foot may not be applied to the correct pedal while driving and this can lead to unintended consequences. In this study, we seek to capture common and unique patterns of variations in drivers' foot movements using functional principal components analysis (FPCA). This analysis technique was used to analyze three categories of pedal response types (direct hits, corrected trajectories, and pedal errors) based on the various foot to pedal trajectories.

Using event-triggered naturalistic data to examine the prevalence of teen driver distractions in rear-end crashes.

Introduction: While teen driver distraction is cited as a leading cause of crashes, especially rear-end crashes, little information is available regarding its true prevalence. The majority of distraction studies rely on data derived from police reports, which provide limited information regarding driver distraction.

Method: This study examined over 400 teen driver rear-end crashes captured by in-vehicle event recorders.

The Effect of Secondary Task Engagement on Adolescents' Driving Performance and Crash Risk.

Purpose: The purpose of this review was to synthesize the evidence of the effects of secondary task engagement on novice adolescent's driving performance and crash risk.

Methods: Searches of multiple databases were conducted using search terms related to secondary task engagement and teenage drivers. Articles were selected for inclusion if they were: written in English, an empirical study assessing the impact of secondary task engagement on driving, and included study participants who were licensed drivers between the ages of 14 and 17 years (if research was conducted in the United States) or within 18 months licensure in other countries.

Special considerations in distracted driving with teens.

Novice teen drivers have long been known to have an increased risk of crashing, as well as increased tendencies toward unsafe and risky driving behaviors. Teens are unique as drivers for several reasons, many of which have implications specifically in the area of distracted driving. This paper reviews several of these features, including the widespread prevalence of mobile device use by teens, their lack of driving experience, the influence of peer passengers as a source of distraction, the role of parents in influencing teens' attitudes and behaviors relevant to distracted driving and the impact of laws designed to prevent mobile device use by teen drivers.

Visual and cognitive distraction metrics in the age of the smart phone: A basic review.

Sources of distraction are numerous and varied, and defining and measuring distraction and attention is complicated. The driving task requires constant adjustments and reallocation of attention to cognitive, motor, and visual processes. While it is fairly straightforward to measure distraction in an experimental situation (e.

Parents' knowledge, attitude, and use of child restraints, Shantou, China.

Background: China has not adopted national policies for child safety restraints in cars, although children are increasingly traveling in cars.

Objective: To describe child restraint use, and parents' knowledge of and attitude toward child restraint in Shantou, China.

Methods: An observational study and driver survey on child restraint use was conducted in the Southeast China city of Shantou in 2012.

Perception and biodynamics in unalerted precrash response.

This research seeks to better understand unalerted driver response just prior to a serious vehicle crash. Few studies have been able to view a crash from the inside-with a camera focused on the driver and occupants. Four studies are examined: 1) a high-fidelity simulator study with an unalerted intersection incursion crash among 107 drivers; 2) four crashes from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) 100 car study; 3) 58 crashes from vehicles equipped with an event triggered video recorder; and 4) a custom-designed high-fidelity simulator experiment that examined unalerted driver response to a head-on crash with a heavy truck.

Using an event-triggered video intervention system to expand the supervised learning of newly licensed adolescent drivers.

Objectives: We examined whether feedback from an event-triggered video intervention system reduced the number of safety-relevant driving errors made by newly licensed adolescents.

Methods: We used a 1-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design to compare the rate of coachable error events per 1000 miles for 18 drivers who were aged 16 years. The intervention consisted of immediate visual feedback provided to the drivers and weekly event reports and videos provided to the drivers and their parents.

Extending parental mentoring using an event-triggered video intervention in rural teen drivers.

Teen drivers are at high risk for car crashes, especially during their first years of licensure. Providing novice teen drivers and their parents with a means of identifying their risky driving maneuvers may help them learn from their mistakes, thereby reducing their crash propensity. During the initial phase of learning, adult or parental supervision often provides such guidance.

Collision warning timing, driver distraction, and driver response to imminent rear-end collisions in a high-fidelity driving simulator.

Rear-end collisions account for almost 30% of automotive crashes. Rear-end collision avoidance systems (RECASs) may offer a promising approach to help drivers avoid these crashes. Two experiments performed using a high-fidelity motion-based driving simulator examined driver responses to evaluate the efficacy of a RECAS.