RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the visibility of cyclists for motorists in a simulated car driving task. BACKGROUND: In several cases involving collisions between cars and cyclists, car drivers failed to detect the latter in time to avoid collision because of their low conspicuity. METHOD: 2 groups of motorists (29.2 years old), including 12 cyclist-motorists and 13 non-cyclist-motorists, performed a vulnerable road user detection task in a car-driving simulator. They had to detect cyclists and pedestrians in an urban setting and evaluate the realism of the cyclists, the traffic, the city, the infrastructure, the car driven and the situations. Cyclists appeared in critical situations derived from previous accounts given by injured cyclists and from cyclists' observations in real-life situations. Cyclist's levels of visibility for car drivers were either high or low in these situations according to the cyclists. RESULTS: Realism scores were similar and high in both groups. Cyclist-motorists had fewer collisions with cyclists and detected cyclists at a greater distance in all situations, irrespective of cyclist visibility. Several mechanisms underlying the cognitive conspicuity of cyclists for car drivers were considered. CONCLUSION: The attentional selection of a cyclist in the road environment during car driving depends on top-down processing. APPLICATION: We consider the practical implications of these results for the safety of vulnerable road users and future directions of research.
Assuntos
Acidentes de Trânsito/estatística & dados numéricos , Atenção , Condução de Veículo/psicologia , Conscientização , Ciclismo/estatística & dados numéricos , Motocicletas/estatística & dados numéricos , Acidentes de Trânsito/prevenção & controle , Adulto , Condução de Veículo/estatística & dados numéricos , Ciclismo/lesões , Simulação por Computador , Planejamento Ambiental , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Segurança , Acuidade VisualRESUMO
International accident statistics indicate that elderly pedestrians make up an extremely vulnerable road-user group. Past research has shown that older adults make many unsafe street-crossing decisions and adopt insufficient safety margins, especially when vehicles are approaching at high speed. Apart from studies on road design and speed-limit countermeasures, there is surprisingly no road-safety research on behavior-based measures to improve older pedestrians' safety. In this line, the present study was aimed at (i) assessing the effectiveness of a training program for older pedestrians that combined behavioral and educational interventions, and (ii) examining whether and to what extent age-related differences in street-crossing safety could be reduced after training older adults. Twenty seniors were enrolled in a training program. Before, immediately after, and six months after training, street-crossing behavior was assessed using a simulated street-crossing task. Twenty younger participants performed the same simulated task to obtain a baseline measure. The results showed that the training produced significant short- and long-term benefits, due to a shifting of the decision criteria among the older participants towards more conservative judgments. When compared with the younger group, the older participants improved their behavior considerably so that significant differences in the mean safety-related indicators were no longer observed. However, the older participants' ability to take the oncoming car's speed into account did not improve. Even after training, and contrary to younger adults, older participants were found to make more and more unsafe decisions as the car's speed increased, putting them at a higher risk at high speeds. This finding may reflect age-related perceptual and cognitive difficulties that cannot be remedied by a behavioral or educational training method. The present findings underline that high speed is an important risk factor for elderly pedestrians that should be handled by effective speed reduction measures (i.e. speed ramps, road narrowing).