The existing literature on road safety suggests that a driver's perception of safety is an important influence on their driving behaviour. A challenging research question is how to measure the perception of safety given the complex interactions among drivers, vehicles and the road setting. In this paper, the authors investigate a sample of driver evaluations of the perception of safety associated with a set of typical road environments. A roundabout was selected as the context for the empirical study. Data was obtained by a computerised survey using video-captured road and traffic situations. A controlled experiment elicited driver responses when faced with a mixture of attributes that describe the roundabout environment. An ordered probit model identified the contribution of each attribute to the overall determination of the perception of safety. An indicator of perceived safety was developed for a number of typical road and traffic situations and for different driver segments. (Author/publisher) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E205861.
Abstract