The Vision and Driving Team has conducted numerous studies examining the visibility of both pedestrians and cyclists at night or in other low-light conditions, and have developed techniques to assess driving performance in a closed-road scenario.
Past research findings have indicated that drivers, both younger and older, fail to compensate for unavoidable limitations at night (such as reduced contrast sensitivity and increased susceptibility to glare sources) that serve to decrease their ability to see pedestrians/cyclists.
Drivers have more difficulty recognising and reacting to pedestrians and cyclists under low-low conditions, and this effect is even more pronounced among older drivers. However, when pedestrians wear retro-reflective materials on their moving joints (biological motion,
or biomotion), this decrement in recognition is greatly ameliorated in both younger and older drivers.
Since fatalities among vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists, increase as illumination decreases, even when other factors are held constant, work that aids in raising their visibility is clearly of vital importance.
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Selected References
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Wood JM, Marszalek R, Lacherez P, Tyrrell RA, Chaparro A. (2010, January). Perceptions of visibility and conspicuity of biomotion clothing configurations for road workers at road work sites. Presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C.
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Tyrrell RA, Wood, JM, Carberry TP. (2004) On-road measures of pedestrians’ estimates of their own nighttime conspicuity.
Journal of Safety Research, 35: 483-490. -
Wood JM, Tyrrell RA, Carberry TP. (2005) Limitations in drivers’ ability to recognise pedestrians at night.
Human Factors, 47: 644-653. -
Owens DA, Wood JM, Owens J. (2007) Effects of age and illumination on night driving: A road test.
Human Factors. 49: 1115-1131. -
Wood JM, Owens DA. (2005) Standard measures of visual acuity do not predict drivers’ recognition performance under day or night conditions.
Optometry and Vision Science, 82: 698-705. -
Tyrrell RA, Wood, JM, Chaparro A, Carberry TP, Chu BS, Marszalek RP. (2009). Seeing pedestrians at night: Visual clutter does not mask biological motion.
Accident Analysis & Prevention, 41(3), 506-512. -
Wood JM, Lacherez, PF, Marszalek, RP, King, MJ. (2009). Drivers’ and cyclists’ experiences of sharing the road: Incidents, attitudes, and perceptions of visibility.
Accident Analysis & Prevention, 41(4), 772-776. -
Wood JM, Chaparro A, Carberry TP, Chu BS. The effect of simulated visual impairment on night-time driving performance. Optometry & Vision Science (accepted 9/02/10).