This study examines the efficacy of different collision avoidance systems (CASs) in different driving situations and with different populations of drivers. A set of experiments was conducted to investigate the utility of several uni- and multimodal collision avoidance systems (CASs) on driving performance of young and older adult drivers in a high-fidelity simulator. Several different CAS warnings were examined in varying traffic and collision configurations both with and without a distracting in-vehicle task. Results showed that collision avoidance performance for both potential forward and side object collisions was best for an auditory/visual CAS, which alerted drivers using both modalities. Older drivers (60-82 years of age) benefited as much as younger drivers from the CAS, and sometimes they benefited more. These findings indicate that CASs can be beneficial across a number of different driving scenarios, types of collisions, and driver populations.
Abstract