Venk Kandadai

Comparison of teen and adult driver crash scenarios in a nationally representative sample of serious crashes

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death and acquired disability during the first four decades of life. While teen drivers have the highest crash risk, few studies examine the similarities and differences in teen and adult driver crashes. We aimed to: (1) identify and compare the most frequent crash scenarios-integrated information on a vehicles movement prior to crash, immediate pre-crash event, and crash configuration-for teen and adult drivers involved in serious crashes, and (2) for the most frequent scenarios, explore whether the distribution of driver critical errors differed for teens and adult drivers. We analyzed data from the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey, a nationally representative study of serious crashes conducted by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 2005 to 2007. Our sample included 642 16- to 19-year-old and 1167 35- to 54-year-old crash-involved drivers (weighted n=296,482 and 439,356, respectively) who made a critical error that led to their crashs critical pre-crash event (i.e., event that made the crash inevitable). We estimated prevalence ratios (PR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) to compare the relative frequency of crash scenarios and driver critical errors. The top five crash scenarios among teen drivers, accounting for 37.3% of their crashes, included: (1) going straight, other vehicle stopped, rear end; (2) stopped in traffic lane, turning left at intersection, turn into path of other vehicle; (3) negotiating curve, off right edge of road, right roadside departure; (4) going straight, off right edge of road, right roadside departure; and (5) stopped in lane, turning left at intersection, turn across path of other vehicle. The top five crash scenarios among adult drivers, accounting for 33.9% of their crashes, included the same scenarios as the teen drivers with the exception of scenario (3) and the addition of going straight, crossing over an intersection, and continuing on a straight path. For two scenarios ((1) and (3) above), teens were more likely than adults to make a critical decision error (e.g., traveling too fast for conditions). Our findings indicate that among those who make a driver critical error in a serious crash, there are few differences in the scenarios or critical driver errors for teen and adult drivers.

EMERGENCY BRAKING IN ADULTS VERSUS NOVICE TEEN DRIVERS: RESPONSE TO SIMULATED SUDDEN DRIVING EVENTS.

Motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death of teens in the United States. Newly licensed drivers are the group most at risk for such crashes. The driving skills of teen drivers are new and still often untested; therefore, their ability to react properly in an emergency situation remains a subject for research. Because it is not possible to expose human subjects to critical life-threatening driving scenarios, researchers increasingly have been using driving simulators to assess driving skills. This paper summarizes the results of a driving scenario in a study that compared the driving performance of novice teen drivers (n = 21) 16 to 17 years old with 90 days of provisional licensure with that of experienced adult drivers (n = 17) 25 to 50 years old with at least 5 years of Pennsylvania licensure who drove at least 100 mi per week and had experienced no self-reported collisions in the previous 3 years. As part of a 30 to 35 mph simulated drive that encompassed the most common scenarios that result in serious crashes, participants were exposed to a sudden car event. As the participant drove on a suburban road, a car surged from a driveway hidden by a fence on the right-hand side of the road. To avoid the crash the participant had to brake hard and demonstrate dynamic control over both attentional and motor resources. The results showed significant differences between the experienced adult and the novice teen drivers in the amount of brake pressure applied. When placed in the same situation, the novice teens decelerated on average 50% less than the experienced adults (p < .01).

Simulated Driving Assessment (SDA) for teen drivers: results from a validation study

Background Driver error and inadequate skill are common critical reasons for novice teen driver crashes, yet few validated, standardised assessments of teen driving skills exist. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the construct and criterion validity of a newly developed Simulated Driving Assessment (SDA) for novice teen drivers. Methods The SDA’s 35 min simulated drive incorporates 22 variations of the most common teen driver crash configurations. Driving performance was compared for 21 inexperienced teens (age 16–17 years, provisional license ≤90 days) and 17 experienced adults (age 25–50 years, license ≥5 years, drove ≥100 miles per week, no collisions or moving violations ≤3 years). SDA driving performance (Error Score) was based on driving safety measures derived from simulator and eye-tracking data. Negative driving outcomes included simulated collisions or run-off-the-road incidents. A professional driving evaluator/instructor (DEI Score) reviewed videos of SDA performance. Results The SDA demonstrated construct validity: (1) teens had a higher Error Score than adults (30 vs 13, p=0.02); (2) For each additional error committed, the RR of a participants propensity for a simulated negative driving outcome increased by 8% (95% CI 1.05 to 1.10, p<0.01). The SDA-demonstrated criterion validity: Error Score was correlated with DEI Score (r=−0.66, p<0.001). Conclusions This study supports the concept of validated simulated driving tests like the SDA to assess novice driver skill in complex and hazardous driving scenarios. The SDA, as a standard protocol to evaluate teen driver performance, has the potential to facilitate screening and assessment of teen driving readiness and could be used to guide targeted skill training.

Open Source Computer Vision Solution for Head and Gaze Tracking in a Driving Simulator Environment

Inadequate situation awareness and response are increasingly recognized as prevalent critical errors that lead to young driver crashes. To identify and assess key indicators of young driver performance (including situation awareness), we previously developed and validated a Simulated Driving Assessment (SDA) in which drivers are safely and reproducibly exposed to a set of common and potentially serious crash scenarios. Many of the standardized safety measures can be calculated in near real-time from simulator variables. Assessment of situation awareness, however, largely relies on time-consuming data reduction and video coding. Therefore, the objective of this research was to develop a near realtime automated method for analyzing general direction and location of driver’s gaze in order to assess situation awareness. Head tracking was employed as a proxy and standard display of computer readable patterns at the corners of the simulator monitors created fixed locations within the simulator display. The analysis system algorithmically detected whether each unique pattern was in the driver’s field of view and computed a homography transformation from the camera view to each of the three screens. The homography transformation standardized the gaze tracking data streams for each of the simulator screens and generated corrected scene-view videos for manual validation. All software and immediate dependencies are open source. We verified that our automated procedure, called SimGaze: (1) produced comparable results to those produced by hand coding of well-calibrated videos and (2) worked in real time, reducing researcher time required for analysis and improving the simulator report.

PW 1213 Implementing a valid virtual driving test in a government driver’s licensing workflow to prevent novice driver motor vehicle crashes

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for US and Canada teens aged 16–19. The first months after licensure pose the highest crash-risk, largely due to poor skill, limited experience and distraction. Therefore, the time of licensure holds promise as a critical teachable moment for targeted interventions to promote safe driving behaviors, yet licensing agencies lack a scalable approach for providing theoretically-grounded, individualized and actionable feedback. Diagnostic Driving, Inc. delivers the only virtual driving test proven to assess the ability for novice drivers to avoid collisions. Validated at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the virtual driving test is completely self-directed and in less than 15 min, can differentiate drivers by skills and experience. The virtual driving test is currently being implemented by a large US state government’s driver licensing workflow as a pretest to the on-road licensing examination. The state currently administers over 600 K road tests annually and our preliminary findings with 4000 novice driver licensing applicants suggest that the virtual driving test can reliably predict road test outcomes (pass/fail). As part of the virtual driving test, normative feedback is provided to each applicant on their individualized driving performance and aimed to motivate the applicant to practice safe driving behaviors as an independent driver. This presentation will cover the collaborative development process between Diagnostic Driving and key subject-matter-experts from the state government in building the virtual driving test. We will provide findings for both the predictive ability of the virtual driving test on road test outcomes and first year crash outcomes for novice licensed drivers. We will also provide evidence for a reduction in first year crash outcomes for licensed novice drivers when provided with scalable and individualized normative feedback on their driving performance upon licensure.