This paper assesses the current practice within vehicle design by firstly giving an overview of the legislation that controls lighting equipment and installation. An experimental study is then described which employed driver response time measures to assess the effects of varying parameters associated with rear lighting layouts (light intensity, spacing and format of signal). This study involved the use of a secondary task technique and pseudo random presentation of rear lighting layouts. The subject test panel employed was chosen to improve the homogeneity of the sample, by selection of female drivers over the age of 50 years, as previous studies had suggested these to be the worst case subjects for this type of work. The results from this study are presented and the implications are then compared with current design practices on passenger cars.
Samenvatting