Effect of the side-view distance and external road characteristics on drivers' searching head movement at uncontrolled intersections. Paper presented at the 23rd International Congress of Applied Psychology ICAP, July 17-22, 1994, Madrid, Spain.

In Japan, there are numerous narrow roads without pavements. Recent rapid disordered developments of housing in urban areas was resulted in the construction of countless narrow roads. The intersections where those narrow roads cross each other often have no traffic signals and low side visibility because of crowded housing and obstructions along the roads. Crossing collision accidents are the most common and serious accidents at uncontrolled intersections in Japan. Compared with accidents in 1970 (100 in 1970), crossing collision accidents show the, strongest increase (204 in 1993) among. types of accidents (Fig.1). Crossing collision accidents in 1993 show the highest accident rate (28.3%) compared with other types of accidents (Fig.2). Crossing collision accidents occur much more frequently at uncontrolled intersections than at controlled intersections with traffic signal (Fig,3). The narrower the road are, the more frequently accidents occur (Fig.4). In order to comprehend the causes of accidents of crossing collision, we need to investigate the effect of external road characteristics at uncontrolled intersection on driver behaviour. (Author/publisher)