01024783

Component

Light truck vehicles (LTVs), comprising light-duty trucks, vans, and sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) drive higher and wider than passenger car,s which could affect the visibility for the following passenger car driver. This paper investigates the contribution of LTV to rear-end collisions resulting from horizontal visibility blockage using the University of Central Florida sophisticated reconfigurable driving simulator. Indeed, a sudden stop of an LTV, in the shadow of the blindness of the succeeding passenger car driver, may deprive the following vehicle of a sufficient response time, leading to high probability of a rear-end collision. To investigate this issue, two sub-scenarios were developed in the UCF driving simulator. The first sub-scenario serving as a base sub-scenario where the simulator car follows a passenger car, and the second sub-scenario serving as the test sub-scenario, where the simulator car follows an LTV. The results obtained by comparing the sub-scenarios showed that LTVs produce more rear-end collisions at unsignalized intersections due to horizontal visibility blockage and due to the resulting drivers’ behavior when driving behind and LTV.

01020180

06-0995

English

22p

2006

Transportation Research Board 85th Annual Meeting

CD-ROM

Figures (10) ; References (12) ; Tables (2)

Blind spots; Highway safety; Light trucks; Rear end crashes; Sport utility vehicles; Unsignalized intersections; Vans; Visibility distance

National Advanced Driving Simulator; University of Central Florida, Orlando

Light duty vehicles

Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment; I80: Accident Studies

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2006 Paper #06-0995

TRIS, TRB

Mar 3 2006 10:33AM