Analyzing driver response times for pedestrian intrusions in crash-imminent situations

This article discusses a study of driver behavior in a simulated pre-crash situation. The tests were performed on a track and aimed at determining the time of the driver response to a pedestrian intruding from the left or the right. A specially developed test stand with pedestrian mockups was used. The values of the brake reaction time and the steering reaction time obtained for 30 drivers were considered in relation to the time to collision (TTC). The analysis involved determining the linear regression equations for the mean, the standard deviation and the 0.1, 0.25, 0.75 and 0.9 quantiles, which are typical measures used by forensic automotive engineering specialists. The article also provides the ranges obtained for the brake reaction times and the steering reaction times. The experimental results show that the driver response time can be analyzed as a linear function of the TTC. The means of the driver response time determined for the two variants of the scenario tested indicate that the time of response to a pedestrian entering the path of the subject vehicle from the left is longer than that obtained when a pedestrian intrudes from the right.