The studies were carried out to find a comprehensible explanation for the driving faults of elderly drivers and to derive some aspects concerning the development of technical support especially for older drivers. Special traffic situations like U-turns, turns at intersections, parking or last-minute maneuvers require more attentional capacity, particularly because the likelihood of approaching pedestrians or cyclists is a realistic scenario. Elderly drivers evidently could not provide sufficient resources to cope with more demanding traffic situations. Experimental studies have found that elderly drivers often fail to look over their shoulders especially in situations like pulling in and out flowing traffic without compensating this act by looking into the rearview mirror. According to the results outlined above, diminished orientation and decreased allocation of attention could be a comprehensible explanation for these phenomena. A delayed detection of relevant stimuli orientation to relevant stimuli in traffic or even failing to see these stimuli may be a key factor of driving faults and accidents. The results show that elderly people are particularly handicapped under dual task situations in which control, orientation and resource allocation are impaired. The most important result of the present study is the nonlinear decrease of performance with rising eccentricity of the peripheral stimuli: up to 50° compensatory processes are probably invoked, that break down at 60°, leading to a sharp decrease of performance, particularly in the group of elderly. In order to give elderly drivers technical support to pay more attention to road users appearing from behind (e.g. an approaching cyclist at an intersection) a driver assistance system may provide assistance. What might be called 'visual field assistant' consisting of a camera system recording other road users involved in special traffic maneuvers but have not to be realised by the driver because of their peripheral detection abilities. To bring relevant traffic information as near as possible to the driver's central point of view the driver should receive special information on a head-up display or comparable kinds of systems (e.g. monitor). As follows from the present results, the eccentricity of those devices should definitely not exceed 50° in order to avoid poor performance. A final important result is the problem of elderly in case of small time intervals between successive stimuli (2 seconds). Hence important stimuli from technical devices should not be spaced too densely. Dependent on road traffic, important information should be given in sufficiently long intervals. Systems with warning functions or partially automated systems might need to be considered especially critical relating to the usability for elderly drivers. These systems must be properly monitored and operated. It is well-known that older people use strategies to compensate losses and limitations of cognitive functions. It might be reasonable to assume that technical systems with warning functions will result in cognitive overload of elderly drivers. This might potentially lead to a greater traffic safety hazard, when poorly designed. Similar conclusions can be drawn in case of in-vehicle information systems (IVIS): IVIS could be a useful and helpful system, if the relevant traffic information are given within a visual field of view up to 50° and a minimum time distance of more than 2 seconds. A time distance of 5 seconds seems to be the best distance for orienting on the new stimulus. When properly designed, IVIS may not disturb, but help elderly drivers to improve their performance.
Towards ADAS for elderly drivers - Neurophysiological aspects
2013
19 Seiten, 19 Bilder, 11 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Towards ADAS for elderly drivers - neurophysiological aspects
Automotive engineering | 2013
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