University of Toronto Reports Findings in Risk Management (Hey, watch where you’re going! An on-road study of driver scanning failures towards pedestrians and cyclists): Risk Management

2021 OCT 08 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Risk Management is the subject of a report. According to news reporting from Toronto, Canada, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “The safety of Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), such as pedestrians and cyclists, is a serious public health concern, especially at urban intersections. A major reason for vehicle-VRU collisions is driver attentional errors.”

Financial support for this research came from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from the University of Toronto, “Prior studies suggest that cross-modal transportation experiences (e.g., being a driver who also cycles) improve visual attention allocation toward VRUs. However, these studies were conducted in simulators or in a laboratory, limiting their generalizability to real world driving. We utilized an instrumented vehicle equipped with eye tracking technology to examine (a) the prevalence of drivers’ visual scanning failures toward VRUs at real intersections and (b) whether there is an effect of cycling experience on this prevalence. Twenty-six experienced drivers (13 cyclists and 13 non-cyclists), between the ages of 35 and 54, completed 18 different turns at urban Toronto intersections, for which gaze and video data were utilized to determine drivers’ visual scanning failures towards areas where conflicting VRUs could approach. Among the 443 unique turn events, 25% were identified as having a visual scanning failure. Results from a mixed effects logit model showed that the odds of committing visual scanning failures towards VRUs during a turning maneuver at an intersection were 2.01 times greater for drivers without cycling experience compared to drivers with cycling experience.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Given that our participants represented a low crash-risk age group, this study suggests that the rate at which VRUs are unattended to may be much higher.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Hey, watch where you’re going! An on-road study of driver scanning failures towards pedestrians and cyclists. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2021;162:106380. Accident Analysis & Prevention can be contacted at: Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Accident Analysis & Prevention - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/accident-analysis-and-prevention/)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Nazli Kaya, University of Toronto, Dept. of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, King’s College Road, Toronto, ON M5S 3G8, Canada. Additional authors for this research include Joelle Girgis, Braden Hansma and Birsen Donmez.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2021.106380. 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.

Publisher contact information for the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention is: Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England.

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