Contributing factors to car crashes related to driver inattention for different age groups

Paper in proceeding, 2015

This study aims to 1) identify the contributing factors in the Driving Reliability and Error Analysis Method (DREAM) that can be linked to a standardised framework for driver inattention, and 2) to analyse the presence of these factors in various age groups. To address the first aim, results are reviewed from the Inattention Taxonomy project which developed a conceptual framework and taxonomy of driver inattention. The presence of factors in DREAM that could be linked to inattention is analysed by aggregation of individual DREAM charts in the Swedish in-depth accident dataset Intact. Such factors are found for 30% of the drivers. Ten percent of these drivers have multiple factors related to inattention. The most common contributing factor for all ages is “Attention allocation”. The second most common contributing factor for the younger drivers (18-24, 25-34) is “Fatigue”, while in the remaining age groups (35-44, 45-54, 55+) it is “Physiological Stress”. The conclusion of this study is that the DREAM method is amenable to the standardised framework for driver inattention and that younger drivers’ crash contributing factors differ to some extent from older drivers. Finally, the analysis shows a lower involvement of driver inattention for crash occurrence than previously published studies.