Abstract
Purpose :
Fatal pedestrian collisions are over-represented at night and poor conspicuity is believed to be a leading cause of these incidents. Retro-reflective clothing has been used to enhance conspicuity, particularly when placed in a biological motion or "biomotion" configuration. This study explored how various retro-reflective configurations affect drivers' judgment of pedestrian walking direction which is critical for predicting the likelihood of a pedestrian entering the roadway and how these relate to self-reported confidence in their judgments.
Methods :
Participants included 21 visually normal licensed drivers (M=21.3±0.4 years). Visual function was measured in a laboratory-based session, followed by a second session conducted at night-time on a closed road circuit. The impact of five different clothing configurations (one without and four with retro-reflective materials) on the accuracy of judging the direction of walking of a pedestrian located 135m ahead, was assessed for participants seated in a stationary vehicle with low beam headlamps. Participants indicated the direction of pedestrian motion (towards the car, straight across the road, or away from the car) and self-rated their confidence for each response (0% least confident to 100% most confident).
Results :
The accuracy in judging the direction of pedestrian motion differed significantly across the five different pedestrian clothing configurations (p<0.001). The highest response accuracy was for the biomotion configuration (80% correct), followed by legs and torso (64%), torso only (53%), legs only (50%), and without any retro-reflective material (33%). Self-reported confidence correlated poorly with the accuracy of participants' responses. An overall pre and post-experiment rating of confidence for judging pedestrian direction of motion also showed significant changes, where post-experiment confidence was better aligned with ability to correctly judge pedestrian walking direction.
Conclusions :
The biomotion clothing configuration facilitated the highest accuracy in judgment of pedestrian walking direction compared to other configurations involving fewer highlighted joints. Confidence ratings were a poor indicator of accurate responses. Importantly, the change in self-reported overall confidence following participation in the experiment suggests there is merit for the implementation of this type of approach as a road safety educational tool.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.