Fatigue and sleepiness are leading contributors to road crashes. Either can occur in the evening, sometime around 10:00 p.m., after a day that begins in the morning, sometime around 8:00 a.m. Other factors contribute as well to performance decrements in the evening for those who regularly work during the day. It is arguably the case that these various factors are responsible for the observed decrements in safety-critical driving skills, such as hazard anticipation, hazard mitigation, and attention maintenance, which occur in the evening. However, it is by no means clear whether a training program can be designed to mitigate the effects that such factors have on these critical driving skills. A simulator experiment was undertaken to determine whether a training program [sleepiness and fatigue evaluation training (SAFE-T)] could lead to improvements in the hazard anticipation, hazard mitigation, and attention maintenance skills of drivers who had been awake for 12 h. The results showed that for all three skills trained drivers performed significantly better during the posttest (after SAFE-T) than the pretest (before SAFE-T), whereas the placebo drivers performed significantly worse during the posttest than the pretest. Fatigue and sleepiness both increased during the posttest from their pretest values. Thus the effects of training are still observed even in the presence of increases in fatigue and sleepiness.
Evaluation of Training Interventions to Mitigate Effects of Fatigue and Sleepiness on Driving Performance
Malek HamidRelated information
1 Faculty of Engineering, International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Gombak, Kuala Lumpur 53100, Malaysia
, Siby SamuelRelated information 2 Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 160 Governors Drive, Amherst, MA 01003
, Avinoam BorowskyRelated information 3 Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva 8410501, Israel
, William J. HorreyRelated information 4 Center for Behavior Sciences, Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, 71 Frankland Road, Hopkinton, MA 01748
, and Donald L. FisherRelated information 2 Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 160 Governors Drive, Amherst, MA 01003
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