Truck drivers' pedal-use behavior during lane changes: examination with naturalistic driving data.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bao S ; Hitchcock T ; Keane P ; LeBlanc D ; Pan C ; Peng H ; Pratt S
• Description:
  This study is designed to evaluate heavy-truck drivers' pedal-use behavior during lane changes, which are a major source of two-vehicle crashes that involve one large truck and one light vehicle, and are very likely to produce both fatal and non-fatal injuries. Previous studies have reported that driver-related errors are the leading factors contributing to truck-related lane change crashes. There are limited studies that have been conducted to evaluate drivers' pedal use during lane changes. The data used in this study were collected through the naturalistic-driving study of the Integrated Vehicle-Based Safety System (IVBSS) program. Ten tractors were used as instrumented research vehicles, while they additionally performed normal operational activities. These vehicles were built to specification for Con-way Freight. Each truck was equipped with instrumentation to capture information regarding the driving environment, driver activity, system behavior, and vehicle kinematics. Driving data from eighteen professional heavy-truck drivers, who operated the instrumented trucks over a 10month period, were collected, as the drivers were conducting Con-way's normal business activities. A total of 198,132 lane change events were identified from the IVBSS database. Among them, there were 111,850 left-lane changes and 86,282 right-lane changes. About 33% of all the lane changes occurred during night time, and 67% occurred during the daytime. 35% of the left-lane changes and 45% of the right-lane changes occurred during highway driving; the remainder occurred on non-highway roads (i.e., main surface and local roads). Analysis of variance results showed that road type, lane change direction and time of day all have significant impact (p<0.05 in each case) on drivers' maximum acceleration rate during lane changes. A significant lower maximum acceleration rate was observed when drivers were driving on highways when compared to driving on non-highways. This difference was more obvious during day time driving. Drivers had a higher value of maximum acceleration rate when making right lane changes than making left lane changes. The results of this study suggest that lane change maneuver is a multifactorial process, with implications for motor vehicle crash contributors. The study team is currently reviewing the findings, and will make recommendations for safer truck driving.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Air Pollutants, Occupational Air Pollution Cotton Fiber Dust Environmental Monitoring Gossypium Occupational Health Safety Textile Industry
• Keywords:
  Acceleration Accidents Behavior Injuries Morbidity-rates Mortality-rates Motor-vehicles Traumatic-injuries Truck-drivers
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 5 ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSR - Division of Safety Research ; DART - Division of Applied Research and Technology
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  95-96
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20047368
• Citation:
  National Occupational Injury Research Symposium 2015, (NOIRS 2015), May 19-21, 2015, Kingwood, West Virginia. Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 2015 May; :95-96
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:e2844ce9021a515b9a7107877c89c65ca051e18a82f988e6aad1c863dd7a179dbcb704fad9aef73870ed1fd5081a48f845231317bf29def4437974f7cbd9e9ad
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/181669/cdc_181669_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 963.01 KB ]