2009 Volume 25 Issue 1 Pages 1-12
The aim of thi s study was to investigate the influences of road surroundings on the relations between drivers' evaluations of risks and their behaviors. A driving simulator was used in this study to simulate two different road surroundings: road with good visibility and residential road. The author also examined the effects of the participants' prior experience of driving in a road surrounding with good visibility on their risk evaluations and behaviors in a residential one, and vice versa. Ten participants were asked to follow the lead vehicle as their daily ways of driving in the simulator. The participants were also instructed to evaluate the risks of each road surrounding and to avoid a crash in the simulated scenarios. It was found that the participants' prior experience of either surrounding had no effects on their risk perceptions and behaviors in the other. Most importantly, the result also showed that the correlations between the drivers' risk perceptions and behaviors were higher for the road surroundings with good visibility, while those for residential surroundings were lower. The results may suggest that driving aptitude tests should include easy driving situations such as a road surrounding with good visibility to detect potential reckless drivers.
