Drivers: UMass study
finds wisdom with age
UMass researchers
found big differences when they put people from different ages in a simulated
driver's seat.
11/16/2002
By STAN FREEMAN
Staff writer
(Union-News Photo: Christopher Evans)
11/15/02: Kim R. Hammel, a graduate research assistant in the mechanical and industrial engineering department at the University of Massachusetts, sits in a Saturn sedan as he operates a driving simulator through various risky driving scenarios projected onto a wrap around screen at the Human Performance Laboratory.
AMHERST - Younger,
inexperienced drivers often fail to see dangerous situations developing on the
road, contributing to the high accident rate for them, according to a new study
by researchers at the University of Massachusetts.
While the finding would
surprise few, the study, which tested drivers of different ages on a driving
simulator, was able to show just how much less skill inexperienced drivers have
in avoiding accidents than those who have many more hours in the driver's seat.
For example, when a bus
or truck was stopped on the roadside, drivers with less than six months' driving
experience anticipated that a pedestrian might walk out from in front of the
vehicle into the roadway only 5 percent of the time. However, drivers who were
60 years of age anticipated the pedestrian 55 percent of the time.
"We know that new
drivers understand the basics of operating a car," said Donald L. Fisher, a
professor of industrial engineering who headed the research project at the UMass
Human Performance Laboratory in Amherst.
"But problems arise
when these new drivers are faced with potentially hazardous situations," he
said. "People who are new behind the wheel don't necessarily identify these
situations as being potentially dangerous."
"We tested the
participants in the driving simulator and followed their eye movements to
determine whether they really know where the danger is, and the simple fact is,
they don't," said Fisher. "Heretofore, no one had solid evidence that
the youngest drivers were not predicting the risks ahead."
The researchers created a
series of 16 driving scenarios to test the skills of 72 people - 24 who were new
drivers about age 16 or 17, 24 who were about 20 years old with a few years
experience driving, and 24 who were about 60 with decades of experience.
The driving simulator was
a car with three screens in front of it onto which the scenarios were projected.
Equipment in the car recorded the drivers' eye, hand and foot movements.
The scenarios included a
bicyclist in the road, a stop sign on a hill, a hidden pedestrian sidewalk, a
blocked intersection and a truck making a turn ahead at an intersection. Time
and time again, said Fisher, the more experienced drivers did a better job of
anticipating danger and the most experienced drivers did the best job.
Drivers can test their
ability to handle the animated scenarios on the laboratory's Web site at
www.ecs.umass.edu/hpl/.
Among the co-authors on
the study were UMass psychology faculty members Alexander W. Pollatsek and the
late Susan Duffy.