Impacts of driving experience and in-vehicle traffic safety information on traffic stability risk in young male drivers : an evaluation incorporating driver’s short-term memory.

The simultaneous impacts of driving experience and use of in-vehicle traffic safety information on traffic safety was investigated in this study, focusing driving behavior of young male drivers. To evaluate this influence, the utility function of the information was first defined by incorporating the influence of driving experience based on the forgetting phenomenon in the short-term memory. By putting this utility function into a driving stability risk model which was built by an ordered response modeling approach based on drivers’ speed choice, the level of traffic safety was measured. The estimated results show that driving experience is associated with better recall of the provided in-vehicle traffic safety information, showing that risk of driving could reduce by provision of the safety information. Data used for the analysis was collected through an on-site driving experiment using a probe vehicle, which was conducted at a signalized intersection approach with a limited traffic signal visibility on the national highway “route 2” in Hiroshima City, Japan in 2006. (Author/publisher)