TY - JOUR PY - 2006// TI - Age-related differences in the driving performance of persons entering a motorway JO - VDI Berichte A1 - Kruger, Hans-Peter A1 - Hoffmann, S. A1 - Buld, S SP - 359 EP - 374 VL - 2006 IS - 1960 N2 - The driving ability of elderly people is increasingly discussed in public. Main difficulties concern driving tasks like cross-roads, lane changing, driving at a high traffic density, poor visibility and others. This paper presents the results of a study describing driving performance and workload of persons entering a highway. Participants were N=36 drivers in three age groups (group1: m= 27 years, group 2: m= 46 years, group 3: m=68 years). Each driver had to master a test course including 14 highway entrances from low to high difficulty in the Wurzburger Driving Simulation. Drivers of age group 2 commit few mistakes due to a fast but harmonic driving style. Elderly and younger drivers make the most mistakes but they differ in the way they manage the driving task. Younger drivers have a speedy way of driving and change lanes with high accelerations. They enter the highway regardless of other traffic. In contrast, elderly persons drive slowly but decelerate more strongly. Their time headways are smaller and their lane keeping is worse than in the other age groups. Of major interest is the higher variance in this group of persons. Younger drivers as well as elderly have risky distances to vehicles in the blind spot area of the vehicle. In addition younger drivers show the highest workload. With respect to these results a specific driver assistance for elderly drivers is discussed.

LA - SN - 0083-5560 UR - http://dx.doi.org/ ID - ref1 ER -