Cost of warning of unseen threats: Unintended consequences of connected vehicle alerts
DOI: 10.3141/2518-11
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
Summary
TRB paper (Chrysler, Cooper, & Marshall) examining the unintended consequences of Connected Vehicle DSRC alerts that warn drivers of unseen threats. Twenty-two participants drove an instrumented vehicle on a closed course encountering primary threat events (e.g., a car emerging from an obstructed side road) plus secondary sandbag targets the driver had to detect with a button press. Sandbag targets appeared just after the primary-threat advance warning but before the threat itself was visible. Advance warnings sped detection of the primary threat but reduced detection distance and reaction time for the simultaneously visible secondary sandbag targets, indicating that warning-induced directed visual search comes at the cost of overlooking other roadway threats.
Key finding
Connected-vehicle advance warnings of obscured primary threats speed driver response to the warned event but degrade detection and reaction time to other unrelated visible roadway hazards encountered during the warning window.
Methodology
Closed-course on-road experiment with an instrumented vehicle; within-subjects design comparing trials with versus without DSRC-style in-vehicle advance warnings of obstructed primary threats. Drivers detected primary threats and pressed a button to report sandbag secondary targets located so that they became visible during the warning-to-threat interval; control sandbags were placed in undistracted segments.
Sample size: N=22
Quality score: 5 / 5