Rear-end (RE) crashes are the most frequently occurring type of light vehicle collision. This paper describes an experiment to refine and field test two potential countermeasures for the problem of RE crashes. The countermeasures consist of "imminent warning" signals intended to direct the following driver's visual glance to the lead vehicle as it brakes rapidly to a stop and for a short time thereafter. A preliminary experiment was conducted to facilitate improvement of the attention-getting capability of an alternating pair of lamps. In the main experiment, an oscillating narrow beam lamp (a promising candidate from a previous experiment) and an improved alternating pair (improved as compared with that in a previous experiment) were compared with ordinary rear lighting. Seventy-two drivers were purposely distracted by in-vehicle tasks as the lead (surrogate) vehicle braked hard. Results showed improvements of 0.25 to 0.35 s in brake activation times for the two enhanced configurations as compared with ordinary rear lighting. Directions for future research are discussed.
Abstract