Blacksburg, Va., -- Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) has been awarded $3 million over two years by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Virginia Department of Transportation to study driver performance and behavior leading up to crashes and near-crashes.
Vehicle crashes kill almost 40,000 and injure more than 2 million people each year in the United States, at a monetary cost greater than $150 billion. "The goal of this research is to provide detailed data on the events leading up to crashes that will begin to allow us to develop a much better understanding of why crashes occur," says Vicki Neale, VTTI safety and human factors group leader.
To this end, more than 100 cars, belonging to private volunteer drivers, will be instrumented with a highly capable and portable data collection systems. The systems will collect data for about one year and will provide detailed information on all of the events leading up to a crash, or near crash, event.
"This is the largest instrumented vehicle study ever attempted and will provide a wealth of new information to help understand, and eventually reduce, vehicle crashes," says VTTI director Tom Dingus, long-time driving safety researcher. Dingus and Neale are the project principal investigators.
"This project will provide a unique opportunity to study drivers’ performance in their own vehicles in real traffic conditions," says Neale. "This study will help to bridge gaps in information that we gain from exploring driver performance in a controlled environment and analyzing crashes after they occur."
According to a NHTSA spokesperson, this project is expected to fill many gaps in our knowledge about pre-crash and conflict behaviors of drivers under real-world conditions.
Technical Contact: Dr. Thomas A. Dingus, dingus@vtti.vt.edu, 540-231-1501.
PR CONTACT: Cindy Wilkinson, 540-231-1547, cwilkins@vtti.vt.edu. Dr. Vicki Neale, Safety and Human Factors Group Leader,
Virginia Tech Transportation Institute,
vneale@vtti.vt.edu, 540-231-1514