Effect of Situation Kinematics on Drivers’ Rear-End Collision Avoidance Behaviour—A Combined Effect of Visual Looming, Speed, and Distance Analysis

Abstract

Considering the large proportion of rear-end collisions occurring in our daily life and the severity it may lead to, the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of situation kinematics on drivers’ rear-end collision avoidance behaviour after brake onset. A wide range of lead vehicle deceleration scenarios were designed based on driving simulator experiments to collect drivers’ deceleration behaviour data. Different from measures (e.g., speed, the lead vehicle’s deceleration et al.) often adopted in previous studies, a visual looming-based measure at different time points was calculated combined with analysis of speed and distance to quantify situation kinematics in this study. The Spearman’s nonparametric rank correlation test was firstly conducted to examine the correlation between visual looming-based metrics and related deceleration behaviour. The mixed model was performed on drivers’ brake jerk and maximum deceleration rate, while the logistic model was then performed to predict the probability of the occurrence of rear-end collisions. Spearman’s nonparametric test showed that both deceleration ramp-up and drivers’ maximum deceleration rate increase significantly as the looming traces increase faster. Results of the logistic model indicated that the probability of occurrence of a potential collision might be higher if the situation at the brake onset is quite urgent and braking is moderate. It was demonstrated that both drivers’ deceleration ramp-up and maximum deceleration rate could be highly kinematic-dependent, and visual looming, driving speed, and distance can be useful information for drivers to take relative deceleration actions.