Response times in drivers' gap acceptance decisions during overtaking
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Summary
This study addresses the lack of understanding regarding the cognitive processes underlying drivers' gap acceptance decisions during overtaking maneuvers on two-lane roads. While previous research has focused on factors influencing the probability of accepting a gap, the dynamic nature of overtaking has made it difficult to measure response times—the duration of the decision-making process. The authors propose a novel method to measure these response times using only kinematic vehicle data, aiming to provide insights into how drivers evaluate gaps and make decisions, which is crucial for developing cognitive process models and mitigating collision risks. The researchers conducted a driving simulator experiment with 25 licensed participants. Each participant completed 28 routes, encountering three overtaking trials per route, resulting in 84 decisions per participant. The experimental design involved a lead vehicle driving at 30 km/h and an oncoming vehicle appearing at either 160 m or 220 m distance. To ensure the driver had to actively evaluate the gap, the lead vehicle partially blocked the view of the oncoming lane, requiring the ego vehicle to swerve left to see the gap. The proposed method defined the start of the decision as the moment the driver’s line of sight to the oncoming vehicle was no longer blocked by the lead vehicle. The end of the decision was defined as the moment the ego vehicle crossed the lane divider for accepted gaps, or the peak of the lateral swerve for rejected gaps. Mixed-effects models were used to analyze the effects of distance gap and ego vehicle velocity on decision outcomes, response times, and velocity changes. The results demonstrated that response times for rejected gaps were significantly longer than for accepted gaps, with an average difference of 0.7 seconds. Response times increased with the size of the distance gap (by 42 ms per 10 m) and decreased with the initial velocity of the ego vehicle (by 92 ms per 1 m/s). Additionally, the probability of accepting a gap increased with both larger distance gaps and higher ego vehicle velocities. During the decision process, drivers who accepted the gap accelerated, whereas those who rejected the gap showed less acceleration or deceleration. The study validated the proposed measurement method, showing that drivers consistently exhibited the necessary swerving behavior to allow for response time calculation in both accepted and rejected scenarios. The significance of this work lies in providing a practical, non-intrusive method for measuring response times in overtaking decisions, which can be applied to both simulator and field data. By quantifying the time drivers take to evaluate gaps, the findings offer a basis for cognitive process models that explain the dynamics of overtaking decisions. Understanding these cognitive mechanisms can help identify why drivers misjudge gaps, potentially leading to improved safety interventions and better modeling of driver behavior in traffic systems. The study highlights that response time is a valuable metric for characterizing the complexity and difficulty of overtaking decisions, filling a critical gap in existing traffic psychology literature.
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The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via author_sweep_intake on 2026-05-27.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | author_sweep | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-27 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 11 | 2026-06-09 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-09 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-27 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-09 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | partial | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-09 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-09; verification: verified_with_issues.
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- Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data
- Methodological Resource: measurement protocol