Naturalistic observation of driving behaviour is a relatively young discipline in road safety research. Using this method, the behaviour of road users can be observed under authentic, real-life conditions. For the purposes of this study, basic measuring devices were installed in 99 cars for an average period of 11 months in 2013. These devices recorded two videos (one directed forwards out of the car and one directed at the driver), geographical position (GPS), speed and vehicle movements. A total of 28 terabytes (461,473 individual files) of data were collected from 148 drivers and stored in a database for analysis purposes. The data were analysed with regard to mobility, seat belt-wearing behaviour, driving speed as well as collisions and near-collisions. The test subjects made on average 2.5 trips per day with an average trip distance of 22 km and average trip duration of 24 minutes. When asked in a questionnaire, the test subjects overestimated their driving exposure by around 60 %. 90 % of the drivers wore a seat belt in over 80 % of cases. The analysis of driving speeds confirmed the results of other driving speed studies: three quarters of the observed drivers exceed the speed limit in 30 km/h zones. The higher the speed limit, the lower the percentage of drivers who exceed it. There were 5 collisions and 165 near-collisions, which were only assessed from a qualitative perspective given the low number of cases. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting