{"id":5526,"date":"2018-08-13T14:26:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T14:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/?p=5526"},"modified":"2018-08-13T14:26:02","modified_gmt":"2018-08-13T14:26:02","slug":"research-reveals-over-half-of-drivers-fail-to-look-for-cyclists-at-busy-intersections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/research-reveals-over-half-of-drivers-fail-to-look-for-cyclists-at-busy-intersections\/","title":{"rendered":"Research reveals over half of drivers fail to look for cyclists at busy intersections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers from the University of Toronto\u2019s Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering have found that more than half of drivers at busy intersections fail to make the necessary scans for pedestrians or cyclists at right turns.<\/p>\n<p>The study used eye-tracking equipment to accurately assess where drivers were looking when turning at an intersection.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of visual and mental demands on drivers at intersections, especially in a dense, urban environment like downtown Toronto,\u201d said Nazli Kaya, a master&#8217;s candidate in mechanical and industrial engineering\u00a0who is leading the research under the supervision of Birsen Donmez, an associate professor and\u00a0Canada Research Chair in Human Factors and Transportation. \u201cDrivers need to divide their attention in several directions, whether it\u2019s other vehicles, pedestrians or road signs and traffic signals \u2013 traffic safety instantly becomes a major concern.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The participants ranged in age from 35 to 54, all with more than three years of driving experience. The drivers were required to make right turns at a signalized four-way intersection, and at an uncontrolled T-intersection leading to a smaller road. Both locations required drivers to safely turn right across a dedicated cycling lane.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key findings:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eleven of the 19 drivers failed to gaze at an area of importance, where cyclists or pedestrians would be located, before turning.<\/li>\n<li>All attentional failures were related to not making frequent over-the-shoulder checks for cyclists.<\/li>\n<li>Attentional failures were more likely for those who drove more frequently in downtown Toronto.<\/li>\n<li>It appeared that drivers less familiar with an area were more cautious when turning.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u200b\u201cThe results were quite surprising,\u201d said Donmez. \u201cWe didn\u2019t expect this level of attention failure, especially since we selected a group that are considered to be a low crash-risk age group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe takeaway for pedestrians and cyclists: Drivers aren\u2019t seeing you. Not necessarily because they\u2019re bad drivers, but that their attention is too divided. When crossing a street, your assumption should be that the car doesn\u2019t see you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This research was presented at the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals (CARSP) conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers from the University of Toronto\u2019s Faculty of Applied Science &amp; Engineering have found that more than half of drivers at busy intersections fail to make the necessary scans for pedestrians or cyclists at right turns. The study used eye-tracking equipment to accurately assess where drivers were looking when turning at an intersection. \u201cThere are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edriving.com\/three60\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}