Studies on the visual demands made on the driver's attention by different types of police driving, including pursuits, are described. Drivers do not randomly sample visual elements but build up a visual search scheme, develop expectations about specific driving contexts, and sample the world in an increasingly sophisticated manner as they become safer and more experienced road users. The vision may 'lock onto' an emerging hazard and all attentional resources are devoted to it, to the exclusion of other features of the driving scene. This inattentional blindness is of especial importance with regard to police pursuits as it may make the pursuing vehicle driver less aware of pedestrians and other road users. The eye movements of police officers driver trained to pursuit standard were monitored while watching video clips of real pursuit drivers in Nottinghamshire. The pursuit and response journeys were recorded from dashboard-mounted video cameras in police cars, while the control clips were filmed on similar roads. The clips were evenly divided between daytime and night-time journeys. While viewing the clips, the participants' eye movements, electrodermal responses and hazard ratings were recorded. Similar data were obtained from novice drivers and a group of drivers of the same age and experience as the police drivers. Analysis of the eye movements revealed higher fixation durations and reduced spread of horizontal search when viewing pursuit clips, but only during the night-time clips. Novice drivers had the longest fixation durations while the police drivers had the greatest spread of horizontal search. All drivers increased the amount of time spent looking at the car ahead when watching a pursuit clip. Other categories of observation showed that the police drivers spent more time looking at pedestrians, parked vehicles and side streets than other drivers. For the covering abstract see ITRD E124157.
Samenvatting