Temporary Barriers to Reduce the Effects of Rubbernecking

Abstract

Driver distraction is an area of research which concerns both public safety and research. Much work has been completed on distractions inside the vehicle; however, distracting scenarios outside of the vehicle can garner visual attention away from driving as well. Occasionally drivers passing a traffic crash will be involved in the crash themselves, due to rubbernecking. To combat this problem one solution is to obscure the scene from view. We empirically examined the efficacy of crash barriers on both eye movements and human per-formance in regards to driver behavior. Participants drove in a simulator in three separate drives (two control drives and one with a highly salient traffic crash) with either no occlusion, partial occlusion or full occlusion. Significant effects of distraction (crash vs. no crash) were found. In addition, the full barrier occlusion had the biggest effect on decreasing the amount of time participants spend looking at the crash.