Eyes front! Are roadside billboards bad for driver attention?
Eyes front! Are roadside billboards bad for driver attention?
There is growing concern that roadside advertising presents a real risk to driving safety, with conservative estimates putting external distractors responsible for up to 10% of all accidents. Until now, though, there have been few empirical studies examining the problem. In this article, we present a simulator study quantifying the effects of billboards on driver attention, mental workload and performance in Urban, Motorway and Rural environments. The results demonstrate that roadside advertising has a clear detrimental effect on lateral control, increases mental workload and eye fixations, and on some roads can even draw attention away from more relevant road signage. Detailed analysis of the data suggests that billboards may in fact have more impact on roads which are monotonous or of lower workload. Nevertheless, the overriding conclusion is that prudence should be exercised when authorising or placing roadside advertising.
365-367
Young, Mark S.
3f79589e-2000-4cb0-832a-6eba54f50130
Mahfoud, Janina M.
a03aeb0b-e3bd-456f-aa57-624701739bd7
Stanton, Neville A.
d681536b-b50f-4e6b-9ac0-2b07ebfd7d38
Walker, G.H.
14ed598f-1320-4723-815b-e597a04219a8
Salmon, P. M.
5a536e91-25eb-41e4-80cb-7386c6d912bd
Jenkins, D.P.
612a71bf-ffda-47d9-bc97-41e531cbd685
1 September 2007
Young, Mark S.
3f79589e-2000-4cb0-832a-6eba54f50130
Mahfoud, Janina M.
a03aeb0b-e3bd-456f-aa57-624701739bd7
Stanton, Neville A.
d681536b-b50f-4e6b-9ac0-2b07ebfd7d38
Walker, G.H.
14ed598f-1320-4723-815b-e597a04219a8
Salmon, P. M.
5a536e91-25eb-41e4-80cb-7386c6d912bd
Jenkins, D.P.
612a71bf-ffda-47d9-bc97-41e531cbd685
Young, Mark S., Mahfoud, Janina M., Stanton, Neville A., Walker, G.H., Salmon, P. M. and Jenkins, D.P.
(2007)
Eyes front! Are roadside billboards bad for driver attention?
Traffic Engineering and Control, 48 (8), .
Abstract
There is growing concern that roadside advertising presents a real risk to driving safety, with conservative estimates putting external distractors responsible for up to 10% of all accidents. Until now, though, there have been few empirical studies examining the problem. In this article, we present a simulator study quantifying the effects of billboards on driver attention, mental workload and performance in Urban, Motorway and Rural environments. The results demonstrate that roadside advertising has a clear detrimental effect on lateral control, increases mental workload and eye fixations, and on some roads can even draw attention away from more relevant road signage. Detailed analysis of the data suggests that billboards may in fact have more impact on roads which are monotonous or of lower workload. Nevertheless, the overriding conclusion is that prudence should be exercised when authorising or placing roadside advertising.
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Published date: 1 September 2007
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Local EPrints ID: 484507
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/484507
ISSN: 0041-0683
PURE UUID: fb48c4d5-be66-4add-b614-695e419db94d
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Date deposited: 16 Nov 2023 14:34
Last modified: 17 Nov 2023 03:08
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Contributors
Author:
Mark S. Young
Author:
Janina M. Mahfoud
Author:
Neville A. Stanton
Author:
G.H. Walker
Author:
P. M. Salmon
Author:
D.P. Jenkins
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