Impact of Cognitive Distractions on Drivers’ Hazardous Event Anticipation and Mitigation Behavior in Vehicle–Bicycle Conflict Situations

Vehicle–bicycle collisions are increasing alarmingly. A recent study shows that cognitively distracted drivers who are glancing on the forward roadway are also less likely to glance toward areas for potential vehicle–bicyclist conflicts. But this study did not determine whether cognitively distracted drivers who did glance toward the appropriate area were as likely to process the information as drivers who were not cognitively distracted. Evidence that drivers who were cognitively distracted and glanced toward the bicyclist were not as likely to process the information could be inferred either from shorter fixations in the area where a bicyclist could appear or from smaller reductions in the speed of their vehicle to mitigate a potential conflict. This study intends to add to previous results by examining only glance and vehicle behaviors of participants who glance toward the latent hazardous events involving bicyclists. Specifically, the durations of the glances toward the latent hazardous events of participants who are and are not cognitively distracted are compared as well as their velocity while approaching the potential strike zones. Two groups of 20 participants (one distracted, one not distracted) each drove through seven scenarios on a fixed-based driving simulator while their eye movements were continuously tracked using an eye tracker. Analysis of the participants’ longest glance duration toward the latent hazardous events indicated that distracted drivers made shorter glances toward the latent hazardous events when compared with their non-distracted counterparts. However, there was no difference in vehicle velocity between distracted and non-distracted drivers near the potential strike zones.