Citation

Zwahlen HT, Balasubramanian KN. Transp. Res. Rec. 1974; 520: 25-37.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1974, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Theoretical and experimental investigations were conducted of automobile path deviations when a driver is attempting to steer his vehicle along a straight path with his vision occluded. A three-factor (car, subject, speed), tow-level field experiment was carried out to test for main and interaction effects. Another field experiment was carried out to determine the effects of no steering control. In both experiments, the vehicle path deviations from the theoretical straight path were measured over several hundred feet and were used as the dependent variable. Both experiments were conducted on a flat airport runway under daylight and no-wind conditions. The experimental results indicate no significant car or subject effects but a highly significant speed effect and a significant car-subject interaction. Specifically, the standard deviations of the vehicle displacements from the theoretical straight path are considerably smaller at the higher speed for a given distance traveled under occluded vision. Further, the standard deviations of vehicle displacements for a given distance traveled are considerably larger for the no steering control condition than for the steering control condition with no visual input. The experimentally obtained data seem in basic agreement with the theoretical path deviation model. Based on the experimental data, the distribution of vehicle displacements for a given distance traveled under no visual input could be reasonably approximated by a normal distribution.

Language: en