New Findings from Monash University in the Area of Safety Engineering Reported (Using Naturalistic Driving Data To Examine How Drivers Share Attention When Engaging In Secondary Tasks)

2020 SEP 08 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Engineering Daily News -- Research findings on Engineering - Safety Engineering are discussed in a new report. According to news reporting out of Clayton, Australia, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “Naturalistic driving research shows that drivers spend vast amounts of time engaging in secondary, non-driving tasks. Laboratory and simulation studies have demonstrated that, when engaging in a secondary task, drivers adopt strategies to interrupt, delay and resume the secondary task in order to manage their workload and risk.”

Funders for this research include Australian Federal Government’s Australian Research Council (ARC), Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC), Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety -Queensland (CARRSQ) at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Centre for Automotive Safety Research (CASR) at the University of Adelaide, Centre for Road Safety, Transport for NSW (TfNSW), NSW’s State Insurance Regulatory Authority, Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission, Victorian State regulator VicRoads, South Australia’s Motor Accidents Commission, National Roads and Motorists Association (NRMA) in NSW, Seeing Machines, Office of Road Safety, Government of Western Australia, Hyundai Motor Company, ARC.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Monash University, “However, there is very little knowledge of the time-sharing strategies that drivers adopt for interweaving their attention across multiple tasks in real-world driving. This study examined the nature of observable visual and/or manual secondary task interruptions in real-word driving using naturalistic driving data. Video of 186 randomly selected trips from the Australian Naturalistic Driving Study were viewed to identify a range of secondary tasks and whether, when and why drivers interrupted engagement in these secondary tasks. It was found that under everyday naturalistic driving conditions, drivers interrupt (or temporarily disengage from) only a small percentage (13.5%) of the secondary tasks engaged in, with 87 percent of these tasks interrupted to re-engage in the driving task. The number of interruptions made to secondary tasks was found to differ according to a number of task characteristics, including task duration and visual load, with tasks of longer duration and higher visual load more likely to be interrupted.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “The results have a range of practical implications, particularly for the design of invehicle devices that better support drivers to break down long tasks into a series of sub-tasks, so that they can more easily disengage when driving demands necessitate.”

For more information on this research see: Using Naturalistic Driving Data To Examine How Drivers Share Attention When Engaging In Secondary Tasks. Safety Science, 2020;129():. Safety Science can be contacted at: Elsevier, Radarweg 29, 1043 Nx Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Kristie L. Young, Monash University, Accid Res Ctr Muarc, Clayton, Vic, Australia. Additional authors for this research include Rachel Osborne, Karen L. Stephan, Judith L. Charlton, Raphael Grzebieta, Ann Williamson, Narelle Haworth and Teresa Senserrick.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2020.104841. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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