The impact of driver cognitive distraction on vehicle performance at stop-controlled intersections

Driver distraction has been identified as an important driving safety issue. However, existed studies focused less on low-speed condition, especially at intersections. This paper aims to find the impact of driver cognitive distraction on vehicle performance at stop-controlled intersections. Eight subjects (young adult: 4, older adult: 4) participated in this study and each of them drove through 40 stop-controlled intersections. The intersections were presented randomly at two levels of FOV (field of view). Driver cognitive distraction was induced by a one-back task and a clock task. Results showed that the cognitive tasks led to more abrupt steering in both age groups while significant influence on lane-keeping capability was only observed in the young group. Steering smoothness was mainly influenced by the cognitive tasks at brake on-restart phase in the young group while at after-restart phase in the older group. Impaired longitudinal control (stop for watching) was observed in the older adult group. These findings can be applied to automatically recognize driver distraction at stop-controlled intersections in future.