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 Accident Analysis and Prevention 39 (2007) 843–852

Effects of major-road vehicle speed and driver age and gender

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on left-turn gap acceptance
Xuedong Yan a,∗ , Essam Radwan a,1 , Dahai Guo b,2

co
aCenter for Advanced Transportation Systems Simulation, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering,
University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816-2450, United States
b Computer Science Program, College of Business, Florida Gulf Coast University, 10501 FGCU Boulevard South,

Fort Myers, FL 33965-6565, United States

Received 28 August 2006; received in revised form 1 November 2006; accepted 12 December 2006

al
Abstract
Because the driver’s gap-acceptance maneuver is a complex and risky driving behavior, it is a highly concerned topic for traffic safety and
operation. Previous studies have mainly focused on the driver’s gap acceptance decision itself but did not pay attention to the maneuver process
on
and driving behaviors. Using a driving simulator experiment for left-turn gap acceptance at a stop-controlled intersection, this study evaluated
the effects of major traffic speed and driver age and gender on gap acceptance behaviors. The experiment results illustrate relationships among
drivers’ left-turn gap decision, driver’s acceleration rate, steering action, and the influence of the gap-acceptance maneuver on the vehicles in the
major traffic stream. The experiment results identified an association between high crash risk and high traffic speed at stop-controlled intersections.
rs
The older drivers, especially older female drivers, displayed a conservative driving attitude as a compensation for reduced driving ability, but also
showed to be the most vulnerable group for the relatively complex driving maneuvers.
© 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
pe

Keywords: Driving simulator; Gap acceptance; Driving behavior; Stop-controlled intersection; Driver age difference; Driver gender difference

1. Introduction accidents occurring at stop-controlled intersections (Laberge

et al., 2006). Previous research has identified gap acceptance
Two-way stop-controlled (TWSC) intersections are the most problems as a significant contributor to the stop-controlled inter-
r's

prevalent intersection type in the United States (Gattis and Low,
1999). At stop-controlled intersections, drivers on the minor
road need to make use of proper gaps among the traffic to
cross or merge into the major road. Because the driver’s gap-
o
section accidents and indicated that incorrect gap acceptance
might cause around 30% of left-turn accidents (Chovan et al.,
1994). As an essential driving performance at stop-controlled
intersections, the gap acceptance decision has been used as an

acceptance maneuver is a complex and risky driving behavior, important measurement to analyze and predict traffic conflicts
it is a highly concerned topic for traffic safety and operation. and accident rates at intersections (Spek et al., 2006; Alexander
th

Retting et al. (2003) reported that nearly 700,000 motor vehicle
crashes occurred annually at stop signs in US and approxi-
mately one-third of these crashes involved injuries in US. In
Minnesota, there were 34,175 reported crashes on rural two-
Au
et al., 2002).
Furthermore, in the current AASHTO Manual (2001), the
gap acceptance methodology is applied to determine inter-
section sight distances, which is based on previous research

lane roads between 2000 and 2002. Over 32% (11,069) of these
crashes were intersection related, with 22% of the fatal rural
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 407 823 5810; fax: +1 407 823 4676.
E-mail addresses: yxd22222@yahoo.com (X. Yan),
aeradwan@mail.ucf.edu (E. Radwan), dguo@fgcu.edu (D. Guo).
1 Tel.: +1 407 823 2945; fax: +1 407 823 4676.
2 Tel.: +1 239 590 7583; fax: +1 239 590 7330.
works (Harwood et al., 2000). In the Highway Capacity Man-
ual (HCM, 2000), the critical gap accepted by drivers is a
key parameter to calculate the minor traffic capacity. How-
ever, both important highway design manuals ignored the
effects of important factors such as driver age and gender and
major-road vehicle speed on the gap acceptance, which has
generally been paid attention to by researchers in traffic safety
aspects.

0001-4575/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.aap.2006.12.006
844 X. Yan et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 39 (2007) 843–852

1.1. Effect of traffic speed on gap acceptances
In the AASHTO and HCM manuals, it is assumed that the
critical gap accepted by drivers does not vary with major-road
vehicle speed, which is based on the previous analysis by Kyte
et al. (1996). However, in the simulator experiment for turn-
ing left from the major road into the minor road (Alexander et
al., 2002), the velocity of the on-coming traffic was the vari-
able that had the greatest effect on the median accepted gap
same sex. Through both simulator and field measures, Staplin
(1995) indicated that older drivers show relative insensitivity
to vehicle approach speed in left-turn maneuvers across the
major road traffic when compared with younger drivers. This
may increase the risk of accidents if there is a lone speeder in
the traffic scheme. Abdel-Aty et al. (1999) pointed out that at
intersections, elderly drivers are over-represented in right and
left turns as well as angle collisions. Scialfa et al. (1991) con-
cluded that older drivers generally over-estimate the speed of

size. This result corresponds to those of other previous studies
involving gap acceptance, which had shown that drivers accept a
smaller gap at higher approach velocities (Darzentas et al., 1980;
Staplin, 1995). Another field study indicated that for a given
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vehicles traveling at low speeds, while under-estimating the
speed of those traveling much faster, which could explain the
over-involvement of elderly drivers in accidents at junctions.

time gap, the probability that a driver accepts the gap increases
as the speed of the opposing vehicle increases, which implies
that the distance is the primary determinant of gap acceptance
(Davis and Swenson, 2004). Based on the speed dependency
of gap acceptance decision, Spek et al. (2006) developed a the-
oretical crash prediction model and found that the probability
co
1.3. Objective of the study
Although numerous previous studies have been done for
the gap-acceptance research, all of them only focused on the
gap acceptance decision itself but did not pay attention to
the maneuver process and related driving behavior. Using a

that a crossing vehicle collides with the major stream vehi-
cle can be expected to increase when the major traffic speed
increases.
on
1.2. Age and gender differences in gap acceptances
It was reported that the process that driving performance
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al
driving simulator experiment for left-turn gap acceptance, this
study evaluated the effects of major traffic speed and driver
age and gender on gap acceptance behaviors, such as minimum
accepted gap, driver’s acceleration rate, steering action, and
influence of the gap-acceptance maneuver on the vehicles in
the major traffic stream. This research aimed at analyzing the
interactive effect between gap-acceptance drivers and vehicles

becomes progressively poorer with age accelerates somewhere
in the fifth decade of life (National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, 1993). Older drivers have problems to ade-
quately detect, perceive and accurately judge the safety of a gap
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on the major road, and identifying the driving behavior differ-
ences associated with major traffic speed and driver age and
gender.

(Laberge et al., 2006). Therefore, older drivers may experience 2. Methodology

greater difficulties at nonsignalized intersections as the result of
diminished visual capabilities, such as depth and motion per- 2.1. Participants
ception. Prior results indicated that judgments about whether
a potential collision would occur were less accurate for older The experiment was a 3 (age) × 2 (gender) × 2 (major traf-
drivers (40–64 years) compared with younger drivers (18–29 fic speed) within-subject repeated measures design. Sixty-three
r's

years) (DeLucia et al., 2003). Lyles and Staplin (1991) exam-
ined police-reported accidents in Michigan and Pennsylvania
and found that when these were ordered according to older-
driver involvement rate, turning left across on-coming traffic
and crossing or turning into a traffic stream were found to be
o
paid participants in three age groups, ranging in age from 20 to 83
years, were recruited for this research. Table 1 lists the descrip-
tive statistics of subjects by age and gender. The young group
ranged from 20 to 30 years old, the middle-age group ranged

from 31 to 55 years old, and the old group ranged from 56 to

the most dangerous maneuvers. Moreover, it was indicated that 83 years old. Every participant held a valid Florida’s driver’s
older drivers are over-represented in severe injury crashes at license with at least 2 years of driving experience. The experi-
th

intersections due in part to increases in frailty and functional

disabilities that occur with age (Oxley et al., 2006). Table 1
Lerner et al. (1995) concluded that older drivers are partic- Descriptive statistics of subjects by age and gender
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ularly overrepresented in multiple-vehicle, intersection-related Age Gender Mean Standard N

accidents, which could be interpreted to reflect slow detection deviation
of and reaction to other vehicles, or slow decision time for Young (20–30) Female 24.00 2.42 14
intersection-related maneuvers. Lerner et al. (1995) collected Male 23.57 2.85 14
gap acceptance data as a function of driver age for left turn, Middle (31–55) Female 39.10 9.27 10
right turn, and through movements at stop-controlled intersec- Male 33.64 3.29 11
tions. The findings indicated that younger drivers (20–40 years)
Old (56–83) Female 69.75 8.66 4
accept shorter gaps than older drivers (over 65 years). Alexander Male 73.30 8.86 10
et al. (2002) found that females require a larger median gap
Total Female 35.93 16.93 28
than males, irrespective of age, and older subjects (65–79 years) Male 40.94 21.83 35
require a larger gap than younger subjects (under 60 years) of the
 X. Yan et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 39 (2007) 843–852
ment lasted for about 20 min in total and the participants were
compensated 20 dollars for their participation.
2.2. Apparatus/equipment
This study used the UCF (University of Central Florida) driv-
ing simulator as a tool for data collection. The driving simulator
is an I-Sim Mark-II system with a motion base capable of oper-
ation with 6 degrees of freedom. It includes five channels (one
forward, two side views and two rear view mirrors) of image
generation, an audio and vibration system, and steering wheel
feedback. The simulated environment is projected at 180◦ of
field view and at a resolution of 1280 × 1024 pixels. The driving
simulation system is composed of the following components:
• Simulator Cab: Saturn Sedan, automatic transmission, air
conditioning, the left back mirror and the back mirror inside
the cab.
• Simview: The software provides the graphical display based
on the computation.
• Motion base: It provides motion when driving.
• Scenario Editor: The software helps researchers to edit a
on
tested traffic scenario.
• APIs for reading real-time data: APIs (Application Program-
mer Interface) can read the real-time data from Simview. The
sampling frequency is 60 Hz.
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2.3. Description of traffic scenarios
In the gap acceptance experiments, a long straight undivided
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two-lane highway was used as the major road. Its length is
around 3000 m with a lane width of 3.66 m. A driving scenario
consists of three stages as shown in Fig. 1. During the course
o r's
th
Au
Fig. 1. Traffic scenario design for left-turn gap acceptance.
Fig. 2. Traffic design on the major road.
845
of the experiment, the driver first drives the simulator for 400 m
along the minor road (stage 1). When the simulator approaches
the intersection, all vehicles on the major road begin to enter
the scene. Then, according to the voice reminder and indica-
tion sign (stop sign and left-turn sign), the driver stops at the
intersection and waits for the appropriate gap in the traffic on
the major road to make his/her left turn maneuver (stage 2).
When the simulated vehicle enters the major road and its speed
is caught up with the major road traffic speed (stage 3), the
py
experiment is completed. All subjects were tested in two sce-
narios, 40.2 km/h (25 mph) major road speed (scenario A) and
88.5 km/h (55 mph) major road speed (scenario B), which is
shown in Fig. 1.
co
2.4. Traffic design on the major road
A challenge in designing this experiment was how to make
the drivers perform their minimum left-turn gap-acceptance
maneuver in the same way accomplished in the real world. For
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obtaining that goal, the oncoming traffic on the major road from
the right was composed of two classes of intermingled gaps to
make the traffic appear random. One gap classification had very
small gaps (less than 3 s) that were unlikely to be accepted by
the participants. The other class consisted of increasing gaps
in which the subsequent gap was 1 s larger than the previous
one. This design assured that the selected gap would be close to
the driver’s minimum acceptable gap and the major road traf-
fic looked realistic. This concept is illustrated in Fig. 2. The
uniformly increasing gaps ranged in duration from 1 to 16 s,
a large enough variation to accommodate all drivers. A previ-
ous gap acceptance study suggested that there is no meaningful
information regarding driver gap acceptance behavior when the
accepted gap size is above 12 s (Gattis and Low, 1999).
846 X. Yan et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 39 (2007) 843–852

Whenever a car on the major road approached the inter-
section, it was automatically changed from “record vehicle”
to the “normal vehicle”. The “record vehicles” move along a
fixed path with the unchangeable speed from the start point
to the end point, whereas the “normal vehicles” intelligently
move along the given route. While the normal vehicles fol-
low a designed speed, they can decelerate, accelerate, and pass
the slow impeding car according to the traffic situation. There-
fore, if the simulator is turning left into the major road very
The orders of scenarios were presented as A–B or B–A randomly
for subject so as to eliminate the time order effect. For security
and liability reasons, each subject was escorted to the simulator
cabin to commence the experiment and he/she was allowed at
least 2 min to rest before running the next scenario.
2.6. Dependent measures
In the simulator experiment, the measured parameters related

slowly, the coming car on the major road will decrease its speed
to avoid a crash. Unless some participants drive the simula-
tor too aggressively or disobey the rationale, there will be no
crashes.
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to gap acceptance maneuver include minimum time gap
accepted by left turners (GAP), average steering angle velocity
during the left turn (SAV), average acceleration of the simula-
tor during the left-turn maneuver (ACC), minimum separation

2.5. Experiment procedure
Upon arrival, the subjects were asked to fill out and sign
an informed consent form (per IRB). The subjects were then
advised to drive and behave as they normally would and to adhere
co
between the minor-road vehicle and the following major-road
vehicle (MCD), speed reduction rate of the following vehicle on
the major road (SRR), and the deceleration rate of the follow-
ing vehicle (DEC). These dependent measures are explained as
follows:
• GAP (in s): the time headway between two vehicles on the

to traffic laws as in real life situations. The subjects were also
notified that they could quit the experiment at any time in case
of motion sickness or any kind of discomfort. Prior to the formal
on
experiment, drivers were trained for at least 5 min to familiar-
ize with the driving simulator operation. During the course of
the practice, subjects exercised selected maneuvers including
straight driving, acceleration, deceleration, left/right turn, and
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major road into which a left-turn driver may choose to turn.
• SAV (in rad/s): total rotation angles are divided by the total
time during which the simulator steer turn left and turn back
when subjects complete the left turn maneuver.
• ACC (in m/s2 ): average acceleration of simulator vehicle dur-
ing the period of making left turn maneuver.
• MCD (in m): minimum clearance distance between the simu-

other basic driving behaviors.

After completing the familiarity course, the formal experi- lator and the following major-road vehicle before the left-turn
ments began during which all subjects faced the same set of two maneuver is completed.
driving scenarios, denoted A for the lower major traffic speed • SRR: the speed reduction rate of the following vehicle on the
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(40.2 km/h) and B for the higher major traffic speed (88.5 km/h). major road to accommodate the turning vehicle.

Table 2
Descriptive statistical results for dependent variables
Factors Parameter GAP (s) SAV (rad/s) ACC (m/s2 ) MCD (m) SRR DEC (m/s2 )

Speed
r's

40.2 km/h (N = 63) Mean 7.44 3.06 1.82 54.16 0.02 0.11
S.D. 2.08 0.79 0.61 17.75 0.05 0.21
88.5 km/h (N = 63) Mean 5.82 2.99 1.89 24.53 0.24 1.20
S.D. 1.46 0.82 0.68 13.38 0.13 1.25
o

Age
Young (N = 56) Mean 6.29 3.08 2.04 37.82 0.12 0.58
th

S.D. 1.79 0.69 0.60 18.68 0.14 0.81

Middle (N = 42) Mean 6.20 3.16 1.86 34.71 0.12 0.85
S.D. 1.50 0.82 0.61 18.58 0.14 1.51
Au

Old (N = 28) Mean 7.94 2.71 1.47 49.35 0.16 0.52

S.D. 2.38 0.92 0.63 27.96 0.17 0.47

Gender
Female (N = 56) Mean 6.93 3.03 1.81 40.88 0.14 0.65
S.D. 2.02 0.80 0.66 22.90 0.17 0.86
Male (N = 70) Mean 6.38 3.02 1.89 38.12 0.12 0.66
S.D. 1.90 0.81 0.64 20.58 0.12 1.18

Total
(N = 126) Mean 6.63 3.03 1.85 39.34 0.13 0.65
S.D. 1.97 0.80 0.65 21.60 0.14 1.05
 X. Yan et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 39 (2007) 843–852 847

• DEC (in m/s2 ): the deceleration rate used by the following Table 5
Mean values of GAP for speed × gender × age
vehicle on the major road to accommodate the turning vehicle.
Category Young Middle Old
3. Experiment results 40.2 km/h
Female 7.56 6.97 10.99
The basic statistical descriptions of the experiment results Male 6.35 6.60 8.76
are listed in Table 2. In the subsequent statistical analyses, an 88.5 km/h
ANOVA was used to investigate differences between factors (see Female 6.00 5.63 7.11
Male 5.26 5.61 6.23

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Table 3). The hypothesis testing in the following analysis was
based on a 0.05 significance level.

3.1. Correlation analyses for dependent variables is lowest and its speed reduction is greatest. An example for
this analysis is illustrated in Fig. 3. When time unit is equal to

Table 4 shows the correlation analysis among the dependent
variables. Clearly, the GAP is correlated with all the other param-
eters. Intuitively, if drivers accept smaller gaps, they tend to
make left-turn maneuvers with a faster steering velocity and
higher acceleration rate, and result in shorter minimum clear-
ance distances to the following vehicles, and larger percentage
co
114.45, the clearance distance is minimum and equal to 19.53 m,
and the speed of the following car is 63.46 km/h, which is close
to that (63.14 km/h) of the simulator vehicle. It can be concluded
that the minimum clearance distance and the maximum speed
reduction always happen at the same experiment sampling time.
After minimum clearance distance occurs, the left turn maneuver

of speed reduction and higher deceleration rates of the following
vehicles.
Furthermore, it was found that MCD, SRR, and DEC are
on
highly correlated with each other. When the left-turn vehicle
enters onto the major road at a slow speed, the following car
on the major road decreases its speed to avoid a crash. As the
following car on the major road is approaching the turning-into
rs
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can be considered to be successfully completed by the subject.
The smaller MCD and the larger SRR and DEC indicate that the
left-turn vehicles have more effects on the major road traffic.
3.2. Minimum gap acceptance
Table 5 lists mean values of GAP for each speed and for

vehicle whose speed keeps increasing, the distance between the each combination of gender × age. The ANOVA results show the
turning-into vehicle and the following major-road vehicle gets significant effects of age (p < 0.001), gender (p = 0.004), speed
smaller, until the minimum clearance distance between the two (p < 0.001), and two-way interaction between age and speed
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vehicles occurs. At that same time, the following car’s speed (p = 0.035) on driver’s gap acceptance (see Table 3).

Table 3
Analysis of variance table for dependent measures
Source d.f. F-ratio

GAP SAV ACC MCD SRR DEC

r's

Gender 1 8.514** .112 2.601 3.660 6.690* .024

Age 2 14.798** 3.587* 9.587** 9.749** 4.447* 1.325
Speed 1 37.044** .752 .159 111.678** 155.082** 36.781**
Gender × age 2 1.468 2.943 1.557 .337 4.053* .138
Gender × speed 1 1.314 1.129 1.003 .009 2.012 .019
o

Age × speed 2 3.462* .388 .018 1.824 .812 .545

Gender × age × speed 2 .204 .029 .171 .063 1.194 .302
Mean square error 114 2.560 .621 .382 219.173 .009 .837
th

** Significant at the 0.01 level.

* Significant at the 0.05 level.
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Table 4
Correlation among dependent variables
GAP SAV ACC MCD SRR DEC

GAP 1 −.280** −.302** .591** −.218* −.298**

SAV −.280** 1 .425** −.074 −.224* −.081
ACC −.302** .425** 1 .324** −.455** −.234**
MCD .591** −.074 .324** 1 −.557** −.448**
SRR −.218* −.224* −.455** −.557** 1 .593**
DEC −.298** −.081 −.234** −.448** .593** 1
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
848 X. Yan et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 39 (2007) 843–852
on
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r's
Fig. 3. Relationship between clearance distance and speeds of the left-turning
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vehicle (simulator) and the following car.
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Old drivers tend to accept larger gaps (M = 7.94 s,
S.D. = 2.38 s), compared to younger drivers (M = 6.29 s,
S.D. = 1.79 s) and middle-age drivers (M = 6.20 s, S.D. = 1.50 s).
Au
There is no significant difference between young drivers and
middle-age drivers [t(96) = 0.283, p = 0.778]. For the gender fac-
tor, it appears that male drivers accept smaller gaps (M = 6.38 s,
S.D. = 1.90 s) than female drivers (M = 6.93 s, S.D. = 2.02 s). The
findings suggest that older drivers and female drivers are more
conservative than the other groups. Although the interaction
effect between age and gender was not found to be signifi-
cant by ANOVA, a plot of the minimum gap versus driver’s
actual age shows different trends of gap acceptance between
males and females (see Fig. 4). The comparison of the 2nd-
order polynomial regression lines shows that the minimum gaps
py
co
Fig. 4. Minimum GAP vs. driver’s actual age by gender.
accepted by male drivers tend to gradually increase as the driver
age increases while those for female drivers show a U-shape
pattern, which indicates that middle age groups accept smaller
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gaps and the younger and older groups have relatively larger
gaps. Furthermore, it shows that the gender difference in GAP
is not significant for drivers from 35 to 55 years; however, for
drivers younger than 35 years or older than 55 years, females
appear to accept larger gaps than males.
The results show that the oncoming vehicle speed on the
major road plays an important role in the gap size accepted
by drivers. Drivers would accept smaller gaps (M = 5.82 s,
S.D. = 1.46 s) for the higher major-road traffic speed scenario
compared to those (M = 7.44 s, S.D. = 2.08 s) for the lower
major-road traffic speed scenario. It implies that drivers rely
on both space and time information to perform gap-acceptance
judgments, which is corresponding to the conclusion of prior
studies (Alexander et al., 2002; Davis and Swenson, 2004).
Furthermore, the interaction effect between speed and driver
age shows that for the lower major-road traffic speed scenario,
there is a strong gap acceptance difference in driver age [F(2,
60) = 34.756, p < 0.001], and the old drivers apparently accept
larger gaps (M = 9.40 s, S.D. = 2.24 s) compared to the younger
drivers (M = 6.96 s, S.D. = 1.82 s) and the middle-age drivers
(M = 6.77 s, S.D. = 1.49 s); however, for the higher major-road
traffic speed scenario, the minimum gaps accepted by old drivers
(M = 6.48 s, S.D. = 1.48 s) are not significantly larger than the
younger drivers (M = 5.63 s, S.D. = 1.51 s) and the middle-age
drivers (M = 5.62 s, S.D. = 1.31 s) [F(2, 60) = 1.926, p = 0.155].
The interaction effect between speed and driver age is illustrated
in Fig. 5.
3.3. Steering angle velocity during left turning
In the output file of driving simulator experiment, steering
control data display the angle of the selected simulator’s steer-
ing wheel. According to the ANOVA results, only age (p = 0.031)
has a significant effect on SAV. During the process of turning
left, old drivers (M = 2.71 rad/s, S.D. = 0.92 rad/s) tend to turn
the simulator steering wheel more slowly than younger drivers
(M = 3.08 rad/s, S.D. = 0.69 rad/s) [t(82) = 2.116, p = 0.037]
 X. Yan et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 39 (2007) 843–852
Fig. 5. Interaction effect between age and speed on gap acceptance.
on
and middle-age drivers (M = 3.16 rad/s, S.D. = 0.82 rad/s)
[t(68) = 2.152, p = 0.035]. Between young and middle-age
groups, there is no statistical difference in SAV [t(96) = 0.488,
p = 0.627]. This finding indicates the trend of decreasing driving
rs
ability for older drivers. Experiment results show that the mean
of SAV is 3.06 and 2.99 rad/s for scenarios A and B, respec-
tively, and there is no statistical difference in the effect of the
pe
major road design speed [F(1, 124) = 0.299, p = 0.585].
3.4. Left-turning acceleration
The ANOVA result shows that only driver age (p < 0.001)
has significant effect on driver’s acceleration rate during the
period of the left turn at the intersection. Older drivers are
r's
more likely to use smaller acceleration rates (M = 1.47 m/s2 ,
S.D. = 0.63 m/s2 ) to achieve the major road traffic speed
compared to the younger drivers (M = 2.04, S.D. = 0.60) and
middle-age drivers (M = 1.86 m/s2 , S.D. = 0.61 m/s2 ). Between
o
young and middle-age groups, there is no statistical difference
in ACC [t(96) = 1.473, p = 0.144]. Generally, the larger gaps that
th
drivers accepted, the smaller accelerations that drivers used to
turn into the major road. Therefore, the driver age effect on
acceleration rate is corresponding to the trend that older drivers
Au
accept larger gaps, and reflect older drivers’ conservative driving
attitude.
3.5. Minimum clearance distance and speed reduction rate
and deceleration rate of the following vehicle on the major
road
Based on the ANOVA, it was found that both age (p < 0.001)
and speed (p < 0.001) are significantly associated with the
minimum clear distance (MCD) between the left-turning sim-
ulator and the following vehicle. Older drivers have larger
849
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Fig. 6. Speed effect on minimum clearance distance.
MCD (M = 49.35 m, S.D. = 27.96 m), compared to those for
young drivers (M = 37.82 m, S.D. = 18.68 m) and middle-age
drivers (M = 34.71 m, S.D. = 18.58 m). Another interesting find-
ing shows that drivers have much smaller MCD for the higher
major-road traffic speed (88.5 km/h) compared to that for the
lower major-road speed (40.2 km/h), as shown in Fig. 6.
Furthermore, the ANOVA results show that speed (p < 0.001),
age (p = 0.014), gender (p = 0.011), and two-way interaction
between age and gender (p = 0.020) have significant effects on
the speed reductions of the following vehicles on the major-
road (SRR) (see Table 3). When drivers turn into the higher
speed major-road traffic, they cause the following vehicle to
reduce speed by a higher rate (M = 0.24, S.D. = 0.13), compared
to turning into the lower speed traffic (M = 0.02, S.D. = 0.05).
As aforementioned before, the speed reduction rate of the
major-road vehicle is highly correlated to its deceleration rate.
The ANOVA shows that the deceleration rate (M = 1.20 m/s2 ,
S.D. = 1.25 m/s2 ) of the following vehicle in the higher major-
road traffic speed scenario is also much higher than that
(M = 0.11 m/s2 , S.D. = 0.21 m/s2 ) in the lower major-road traf-
fic speed scenario [F(1, 124) = 45.863, p < 0.001]. The results
imply a general trend that left-turn vehicles have more effects
on higher speed major-road traffic and drivers take more risks
for gap acceptance maneuvers at intersections with higher design
speeds.
It was also found that the left turns of older drivers con-
tribute to more SRR (M = 0.16, S.D. = 0.17), compared to
those for young drivers (M = 0.12, S.D. = 0.14) and middle-age
drivers (M = 0.12, S.D. = 0.14); and female drivers result in a
higher SRR (M = 0.14, S.D. = 0.17) than male drivers (M = 0.12,
S.D. = 0.12). Furthermore, the interaction effect between age and
gender illustrates that the old female drivers cause the highest
SRR (see Fig. 7) but other age-gender groups show similar SRR.
Therefore, older female drivers have a main contribution to gen-
850 X. Yan et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 39 (2007) 843–852
Fig. 7. Interaction effect between age and gender on speed reduction rate.
on
der and age difference in the following vehicle speed reduction
rate.
rs
4. Discussions
The experiment results illustrated that the major road
traffic speed contributes to an interactive effect between gap-
pe
acceptance drivers and vehicles on the major road. First, drivers
are more likely to accept smaller gaps in the higher major-road
traffic speed scenario than the lower major-road traffic speed
scenario. It implied that drivers show relatively less sensitivity
to vehicle approach speed but more sensitivity to on-coming
vehicle’s distance or position. The perceptual task of drivers for
r's
gap acceptance requires integrating speed and distance informa-
tion of a longitudinally coming-through vehicle moving in depth
without significant change in visual direction. Olson (1996) sug-
gests that the speed of an approaching vehicle may not easily
be perceived until it is very near. This finding corresponds to
o
the previous study results of gap acceptances for left-crossing
maneuver (Cooper et al., 1977; Hancock et al., 1991; Alexander
th
et al., 2002).
On the other hand, due to accepting smaller gaps for the
higher traffic speed, drivers have shorter separation from the fol-
Au
lowing vehicle, result in more speed reduction and deceleration
rate of the following vehicles to accommodate the turning vehi-
cle, and therefore contribute to more effects on major road traffic
operation. These findings implied a connection between high
crash risk and high traffic speed at stop-controlled intersections.
A previous study reported that stop-controlled intersections
where high-speed, high-volume roads are intersected by lower-
speed, lower-volume roads controlled by a stop sign are a major
problem for traffic safety, particularly in rural areas (Laberge et
al., 2006). Therefore, effective speed control countermeasures to
reduce speeding behaviors may lead to decrease in crashes hap-
pening at stop-controlled intersections. Also, it is suggested that
a further analysis of the quantitative relationship between inter-
section operation speed and gap-acceptance crash rate based on
crash databases be conducted.
The experiment results showed that there is an apparent age
difference in the left-turn driving behavior, as well as gen-
der difference. Compared to younger drivers and middle-age
drivers, the older subjects tend to select larger gaps to make
left turns, turn the steering wheel more slowly, and keep a fur-
py
ther clearance distance from the following car. The conservative
driving attitude of older drivers would compensate driving abil-
ity decrease. In the previous research, there is also evidence that
elderly drivers perceive potential risk situations at intersections
co
and change their driving habits to avoid them. It was demon-
strated that drivers 55 years and older, particularly those who
had a previous history of crashes, avoided driving in rain, during
rush hour and making left turns across traffic (Ball et al., 1998).
However, when making left turns in the higher major-road traffic
speed scenario, the older subjects did not show age difference in
al
gap acceptance. The results confirmed the conclusion that older
drivers rely primarily or exclusively on perceived distance to
perform gap-acceptance judgments, reflecting a reduced ability
to integrate time based on speed and distance information with
increasing age (Staplin et al., 1993). Spek et al. (2006) indicated
that the effect that drivers tend to accept smaller time gaps as
the approach speed increases appears to be stronger for older
drivers than for younger drivers, suggesting that the older driver
is more prone to collide with speeding vehicles.
For the gender factor, the results showed that male drivers
accept smaller gaps than female drivers, which reflect a gen-
eral conservative driving attitude of female drivers. By assessing
both general perceptual-motor performance and safety concerns,
it was found that male drivers consistently overestimate their
perceptual-motor skills, whereas safety skills are more promi-
nent among female drivers (Lajunen et al., 1998; Lajunen and
Summala, 1995). However, the result also showed that the older
female drivers contribute to the most significant influence in the
major road vehicle speed. The finding implied that older females
could be the most vulnerable group for the relatively complex
driving maneuvers because of more reductions in their driving
ability. It is worthwhile to mention that the older female group
in this study only includes four observations, which led to larger
variations of the related experiment results. Nevertheless, the
observed trend in this study implies that a further safety concern
is needed for this high risk driver group.
Driving simulators provide a safe and controlled virtual envi-
ronment to test high risk driving behaviors. The convenient
traffic design in the driving simulator allowed researchers to
observe the minimum gap selected by subjects, while it is
very difficult in a field study since drivers’ gap acceptances
are influenced by the traffic volume distribution on the major
road. According to the experience of this simulator experiment,
the scenario design method can be used to analyze other gap-
acceptance behaviors at priority intersections, such as right turn
from the minor road and crossing maneuver from the minor road
or major road. Furthermore, the driving simulator enabled the
traffic parameters, such as SAV, ACC, MCD, SRR, and DEC
 X. Yan et al. / Accident Analysis and Prevention 39 (2007) 843–852
related to drivers’ gap decisions, to be efficiently collected.
These parameters were generally omitted by previous gap accep-
tance studies. In this study, it was found that older drivers tended
to accept larger gaps to compensate the reducing driving ability,
but they still showed more influence on the major road traffic
than younger and middle-age drivers. Thus, the results implied
that the gap acceptance accident risk may not be accurately pre-
dicted only based on the probability that drivers accept small
gaps.
However, it should be mentioned that for simulator exper-
iments, there are some general limitations and validation
considerations. A problem that occurs frequently with all driving
simulators is simulator sickness. Based on the authors’ experi-
ences in previous driving simulator experiments, the simulator
sickness is particularly correlated with turning maneuvers and
braking behaviors. Without a real safety risk as field test, sick-
ness in a simulator experiment may significantly harm drivers’
gap acceptance decisions because drivers would try to complete
the experiment as soon as possible to reduce the discomfort level.
Therefore, this study attempted to avoid the sickness effect on the
experiment results through encouraging participants with sick-
ness to quit the experiment (they still obtained payment for their
on
involvements even if not completing the experiment). Another
purpose of this policy is to protect older participants since the
oldest subject is 83 years old. In this study, the older female sub-
jects were most sensitive to simulator sickness and only 4 of 10
rs
participants fully completed the experiments without suffering
any sickness.
Previous driving simulator validity studies related driving
behaviors are measured using two types of validity: absolute
pe
validity (when the numerical values between the two systems
are the same) and relative validity (when differences found
between experimental conditions are in the same direction, and
have a similar or identical magnitude on both systems) (Blaauw,
1982). For the absolute validity, the conclusions of the sim-
ulator validity varied in different types of driving simulators
r's
and test scenarios. However, from the perspective of the relative
validity, most previous studies concluded that driving simulators
can reflect a similar trend of the driving performance in driving
simulators to that in the real world. Lee (2002) compared driv-
ing performance of older adult drivers (60–90 years) between a
o
PC-based simulator and subjects’ own cars. He found a covari-
ance (r2 = 0.66) between the two measures and concluded that
th
simulator usage was a safer and more economical method than
the on-road testing to assess the driving performance of older
adult drivers. For the speed and lane position control studies,
Au
Godley et al. (2002) and Törnros’s (1998) reported that par-
ticipants generally drove faster in the instrumented car than
the simulator, whereas relative validity was achieved for both
speed and lateral position. More recently, a speed validation
study focused on the effectiveness of temporary traffic signs
on highways (Bella, 2005). The results showed that differences
between the speeds observed in the real situation and those mea-
sured with the simulator were not statistically significant and
validated the driving simulator in absolute terms. In this study,
since the authors did not conduct a field validation for the simu-
lator data, caution should be taken in transferring these findings
851
directly to practice in absolute terms. However, the observed
trends and patterns associated with the gap-acceptance behav-
iors should be valid and contribute to the further research or
practical work.
5. Conclusions
In summary, this driving simulator experiment illustrated
py
relationships among drivers’ left-turn gap decision, correspond-
ing driving behaviors, and consequent influence on the vehicles
in the major traffic stream. The results indicated that major
road traffic speed and driver age and gender have significant
co
effects on the gap-acceptance maneuver. The findings identified
an association between high crash risk and high traffic speed
at stop-controlled intersections. The older drivers displayed a
conservative driving attitude as a compensation for the reducing
driving ability. However, due to the aging effect on cognitive,
perceptual, and motor abilities, they may still be the most vul-
nerable group for the relatively complex driving maneuvers,
al
especially for older female drivers.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the Florida Depart-
ment of Transportation (FDOT) for its sponsorship of this
research project. Appreciation is also extended to CATSS staff
and students for providing assistance with the execution of the
simulation of the experiment. The recommendations of this
study are those of the authors and they do not represent views
of FDOT.
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