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Highway driving safety the day after using sleep medication: the direction of lapses and excursions out‐of‐lane in drowsy drivers
Author(s) -
Verster Joris C.,
Mooren Loes,
Bervoets Adriana C.,
Roth Thomas
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of sleep research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.297
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2869
pISSN - 0962-1105
DOI - 10.1111/jsr.12622
Subject(s) - safer , crash , medicine , driving simulator , psychology , physical medicine and rehabilitation , simulation , engineering , computer science , computer security , programming language
Summary The primary outcome measure of the on‐road driving test is the Standard Deviation of Lateral Position. However, other outcome measures, such as lapses and excursions out‐of‐lane, also need to be considered as they may be related to crash risk. The aim of this study was to determine the direction of lapses and excursions out‐of‐lane (i.e. towards/into the adjacent traffic lane or towards/into the road shoulder). In total, data from 240 driving tests were re‐analysed, and 628 lapses and 401 excursions out‐of‐lane were identified. The analyses revealed that lapses were made equally frequently over left (49.4%) and over right (43.3%). In contrast, excursions out‐of‐lane were almost exclusively directed over right into the (safer) road shoulder (97.3%). These findings suggest that drivers are unaware of having lapses, whereas excursions out‐of‐lane are events where the driver is aware of loss of vehicle control.