Hazard anticipation of young novice drivers - SWOV

tasks was 3.10, 95% CI [1.73, 5.47]. Preliminary results of another naturalistic
driving study with heavy vehicles and lorries have revealed that typing,
reading and sending text messages on a cell phone or a smart phone while
driving is in particular dangerous (VTTI, 2009). It was found that while
texting the occurrence of a 'safety-critical event' was 23 times higher than
during non-distracted driving.
Figure 2.6 shows the crash rate (crashes per million driver miles) of attentive
and inattentive drivers prior to the crash per age group in the 100-Car
Naturalistic driving study. Inattentive drivers did not pay attention to the
developing hazardous traffic situation in the 3 seconds before the crash
because they were distracted (in accordance with the definition) because they
were drowsy or because they glanced in non-specific directions away from
the developing hazard.
90
Car crashes per million driver miles
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Crash Inattentive
Crash attentive
0
18-20 21-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+
Age groups
Figure 2.6. Rate of inattentive and attentive crashes per million miles driven per age
group (adapted from Dingus et al., 2006).
The crash rates of inattentive crashes declined, as drivers were older (until
the age of 54). And the crash rates of attentive crashes increased as drivers
were older (till the age of 34). After having analysed more than 5000 crash
reports Stutts et al. (2001) found that of all age groups, young drivers (under
20 years of age) had the most distraction-related crashes. They especially
were more involved in distraction related crashes because of secondary tasks
involving equipment not related to driving such as adjusting the radio,
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