Ali Yasir, Haque Md Mazharul
Loughborough University, School of Architecture, Building, and Civil Engineering, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, United Kingdom.
Queensland University of Technology, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
Accid Anal Prev. 2023 Jun;185:107015. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2023.107015. Epub 2023 Mar 6.
Braking is an important characteristic of driving behaviour that has a direct relationship with rear-end collisions in a car-following task. Braking becomes more crucial when drivers' cognitive workload increases because of using mobile phones whilst driving. This study, therefore, investigates and compares the effects of using mobile phones whilst driving on braking behaviour. Thirty-two young licenced drivers, evenly split by gender, faced a safety-critical event, that is, leader's hard braking, in a car-following situation. Each participant drove the CARRS-Q Advanced Driving Simulator and was required to respond to a braking event in the simulated environment in three phone conditions: baseline (no phone conversation), handheld, and hands-free. A random parameters duration modelling approach is employed to (i) model drivers' braking (or deceleration) times using a parametric survival model, (ii) capture unobserved heterogeneity associated with braking times, and (iii) account for repeated experiment design. The model identifies the handheld phone condition as a random parameter whilst vehicle dynamics variables, hands-free phone condition, and driver-specific variables are found as fixed parameters. The model suggests that most distracted drivers (in the handheld condition) reduce their initial speeds more slowly than undistracted drivers, reflecting their delayed initial braking that may lead to abrupt braking to avoid a rear-end collision. Further, another group of distracted drivers exhibits faster braking (in the handheld condition), recognising the risk associated with mobile phone usage and delayed initial braking. Provisional licence holders are found to be slower in reducing their initial speeds than open licence holders, indicating their risk-taking behaviour because of their less experience and more sensitivity to mobile phone distraction. Overall, mobile phone distraction appears to impair the braking behaviour of young drivers, which poses significant safety concerns for traffic streams.
制动是驾驶行为的一个重要特征，在跟车任务中与追尾碰撞有直接关系。当驾驶员因在驾驶时使用手机而导致认知工作量增加时，制动就变得更加关键。因此，本研究调查并比较了驾驶时使用手机对制动行为的影响。32名年轻的持证驾驶员，按性别平均分配，在跟车情况下面临一个安全关键事件，即前车急刹车。每位参与者驾驶CARRS-Q高级驾驶模拟器，并被要求在三种手机使用情况下对模拟环境中的制动事件做出反应：基线状态（无电话交谈）、手持电话和免提电话。采用随机参数持续时间建模方法来（i）使用参数生存模型对驾驶员的制动（或减速）时间进行建模，（ii）捕捉与制动时间相关的未观察到的异质性，以及（iii）考虑重复实验设计。该模型将手持电话情况识别为随机参数，而车辆动力学变量、免提电话情况和驾驶员特定变量则被发现为固定参数。该模型表明，大多数分心驾驶员（在手持电话情况下）比未分心驾驶员更慢地降低其初始速度，这反映出他们初始制动延迟，可能导致突然制动以避免追尾碰撞。此外，另一组分心驾驶员（在手持电话情况下）制动更快，认识到与使用手机相关的风险以及初始制动延迟。临时驾照持有者被发现比正式驾照持有者在降低初始速度方面更慢，这表明由于他们经验较少且对手机分心更敏感，存在冒险行为。总体而言，手机分心似乎会损害年轻驾驶员的制动行为，这对交通流构成了重大安全隐患。
