Although driver distraction can be considered as part of everyday driving it constitutes a basic contributory factor for increased risk for road accidents internationally. Within this content, cell-phone use and conversation with passenger are two critical in-vehicle distraction conditions with respect to driver behavior and safety. The objective of this research is the investigation of the effect of area and traffic conditions on driving performance of drivers while talking on the mobile phone or conversing with the passenger. For this purpose, a large driving simulator experiment is carried out, in which 95 drivers from all different age groups (young, middle aged and older) were asked to drive under different types of distraction (no distraction, conversation with passenger, cell phone use) in rural and urban road environment, in low and high traffic. In the next step, an appropriate modelling methodology has been developed, including first descriptive analysis in order to explore the large database. Then generalized linear models as well as generalized linear mixed models regarding average speed and reaction time were implemented in order to estimate the effect of the examined distraction sources as well as area and traffic characteristics on driving behaviour and road safety. Results indicate that female drivers, especially in rural areas, were found to have the worst reaction times, while being distracted (either conversing with a passenger or talking on the cell phone). This is probably explained by the fact that in urban area, the complex road environment alerts the drivers in order to self-regulate their driving to compensate for any decrease in attention to the driving task. Furthermore, regarding average speed, it is observed that in rural areas drivers reduce the speed while distracted either by talking on the mobile phone (older drivers) or by conversing with the passenger (young and middle aged drivers), especially at high traffic volume while in urban areas suggesting a driver's compensatory behaviour. The next steps of the present research could focus on the investigation of the impact of mobile phone use, not only when the drivers talk on mobile phone using a hand-held device, but also when they use a hands-free device, a Bluetooth, or when they type messages.@en

While driving simulators allow for the examination of a range of driving performance measures in a controlled, relatively realistic and safe driving environment, driver distraction is a multidimensional phenomenon which means that no single driving performance measure can capture all effects of distraction. Furthermore, the large number of driving related outcomes each simulator provides, indicates that the decision regarding which measure or set of measures is used should be guided by specific criteria. The objective of this paper is a comprehensive review of driving performance parameters critical for distracted driving research. For this purpose an extended literature review took place in order to investigate the critical parameters which are examined in the scientific field of driver distraction. Firstly, all driving performance parameters examined in driving simulator experiments are identified and analysed including lateral control, longitudinal control, reaction time, gap acceptance, eye movement and workload measures, while a list of the most common driving simulator dependent variables is cited. Subsequently, a thorough literature review is carried out including 42 studies examining driver distraction through driving simulator experiments which were published in scientific journals, concern recent research and report quantitative results. In this framework, the respective driving performance measures are recorder aiming to investigate which and how they are analysed. A basic remark concerns the quantitative measures used to express driver distraction. In most cases, driver distraction is measured in terms of its impact to driver attention, driver behaviour and driver accident risk. It is noted that the specific measures used vary significantly. However, the diversity in the measures used, in combination with the diversity in the design of the experiments (i.e. road and traffic factors examined, number and duration of trials) often complicates the synthesis of the results, especially for the less commonly examined distraction factors.@en

The objective of this paper is to analyze the self-reported driving behaviour of older drivers with and without brain pathologies affecting cognition, in order to explore possible differences in self-perception of driving behaviour, through an extensive questionnaire assessment. The diagnostic categories examined include Alzheimer׳s disease, Parkinson׳s disease, and Mild Cognitive Impairment. The questionnaire was answered by 137 drivers with similar demographic characteristics, out of which 44 were healthy individuals and 93 had a brain pathology. It included questions about their driving routines, possible avoidance of driving, and their emotions and behaviours while driving. The participants were also asked about their opinion about in-vehicle driver distraction and how they deal with it. A comparison of the two groups with Kruskal-Wallis and One-Way ANOVAs, produced several statistically significant results. Patients tended to report that they were more likely to avoid using their vehicle because they were afraid of their driving abilities than healthy drivers. Regarding distraction, patients considered it too dangerous to converse with a passenger and even more so, to use the mobile phone and for that reason they reported avoiding to do so. Patients with brain pathologies reported being quite calm while driving. Overall, drivers with brain pathologies were aware of deterioration in their driving performance, and reported trying to compensate for their driving difficulties either by conservative driving or by driving avoidance.@en

This research aims to investigate the impact of advertising signs on road safety. An exhaustive review of international literature was carried out on the effect of advertising signs on driver behaviour and safety. Moreover, a before-and-after statistical analysis with control groups was applied on several road sites with different characteristics in the Athens metropolitan area, in Greece, in order to investigate the correlation between the placement or removal of advertising signs and the related occurrence of road accidents. Road accident data for the ‘before’ and ‘after’ periods on the test sites and the control sites were extracted from the database of the Hellenic Statistical Authority, and the selected ‘before’ and ‘after’ periods vary from 2.5 to 6 years. The statistical analysis shows no statistical correlation between road accidents and advertising signs in none of the nine sites examined, as the confidence intervals of the estimated safety effects are non-significant at 95% confidence level. This can be explained by the fact that, in the examined road sites, drivers are overloaded with information (traffic signs, directions signs, labels of shops, pedestrians and other vehicles, etc.) so that the additional information load from advertising signs may not further distract them.@en

The objective of this research is the critical assessment of driving simulator studies on driver distraction. For this purpose 45 scientific papers have been examined with respect to the design of driving simulator experiments on the effects of various sources of driver distraction (in-vehicle or external). More specifically, for each experiment reviewed, several basic characteristics have been recorded and analysed such as the sample characteristics (size, sex, age distribution), the experiment design (number of trials, duration and type of driving tasks, simulated road and traffic environment), as well as the distraction source examined (cell phone, conversation, visual, music, driver assistance systems, etc.). Through this analysis it was concluded that there is a considerable body of research devoted to driver distraction and the existing studies have contributed useful insights on the effects of distraction on driver behavior and safety. It was revealed that research results are consistent in terms of the sign and magnitude of the effects of distraction, indicating that driving simulators – despite their limitations – are a most useful tool for distracted driving research. However, the analysis also revealed several areas for improvement in the design of future studies. It appears that the design and implementation of such experiments can be carried out in a variety of ways, depending on the research question and the type of simulator, however it is important to conform to experimental design principles. It was found that the majority of existing studies are based on samples between 30-40 participants, in most cases not representative of the general population, and for which statistical power is not always reported. The number and duration of experiment trials vary considerably, not always proportionally to the number of parameters examined, complicating the comparability of the studies. The most common distraction sources examined are visual distraction and cell phone use, while other sources of distraction have received notably less attention in existing studies. The simulated road environment of most experiments was rural, whereas far less is known on the effects of distraction in urban areas; furthermore, ambient traffic is not explicitly simulated and the effect of traffic flow on distracted driving may be a key question for further investigation. Finally, driver distraction is expressed by a number of measures, in terms of its impact to driver attention (hands-off the wheel, eyes-off the road), driver behaviour (vehicle speed, headway, lateral position, driver reaction time) and driver accident risk. Although these different measures describe different aspects of the distracted driving mechanism, it would be important to focus on the most sensitive ones, keeping in mind the entire chain of distracted driving causes and impacts, in order to significantly enhance the potential of exploitation of the results of existing studies.@en

The objective of this research was the analysis of the driving performance of drivers with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s disease (AD), in different road and traffic conditions, on the basis of a driving simulator experiment. In this experiment, healthy “control” drivers, patients with MCI, and patients with AD, drove at several scenarios at the simulator, after a thorough neurological and neuropsychological assessment. The scenarios include driving in rural and urban areas in low and high traffic volumes. The driving performance of healthy and impaired drivers was analysed and compared by means of Repeated Measures General Linear Modelling techniques. A sample of 75 participants was analysed, out of which 23 were MCI patients and 14 were AD patients. Various driving performance measures were examined, including longitudinal and lateral control measures. The results suggest that the two examined cerebral diseases do affect driving performance, and there were common driving patterns for both cerebral diseases, as well as particular characteristics of specific pathologies. More specifically, cognitively impaired drivers drive at lower speeds and with larger headway compared to healthy drivers. Moreover, they appear to have difficulties in positioning the vehicle on the lane. The group of patients had difficulties in all road and traffic environments, and especially when traffic volume was high. Most importantly, both cerebral diseases appear to significantly impair reaction times at incidents. The results of this research suggest that compensatory behaviours developed by impaired drivers are not adequate to counterbalance the direct effects of these cerebral diseases on driving skills. They also demonstrate that driving impairments increase as cognitive impairments become more severe (from MCI to AD).@en