In 2011 dedicated Daytime Running Lights (DRL) have become mandatory for new car models within the European Community. These lamps are meant to prevent collisions by increasing the conspicuity of cars during daytime. Nevertheless, concerns arose that vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and bicyclists could be missed by car drivers whose attention is attracted towards other cars instead. Furthermore, motorcyclists feared they would be overlooked when losing the unique feature of running lights at daytime. On behalf of German Insurers Accident Research (UDV) Human Factors Consult GmbH in cooperation with the department of Lighting Technology of the Technical University of Berlin conducted a comprehensive study examining the effects of DRL in real traffic as well as in a driving simulator.. In the part reported here we conducted an experiment in our laboratory addressing the question whether DRL impair drivers' perception of other road users. A car with either no lights, halogen low beam, or LED DRL was presented together with a motorcyclist, bicyclist, pedestrian, or no target for a very short term. Hence, the detection of the stimuli was time-critical as can be expected in a real driving situation. Additionally, drivers' workload was implemented by a continuous tracking task executed simultaneously. The scenery as well as the subjects were well-lit to represent daylight conditions. In a second part the luminance was reduced in order to induce twilight. The variation of the surrounding luminance lead to differences in the subjects' confidence about their recognition of the stimuli. In one case the time needed to identify the target was altered too. Nevertheless, no significant effect of low beam or DRL on the actual detection performance occurred. Thus, despite of incidental subjective uncertainty the risk for vulnerable road users of being overlooked does not seem to be increased by DRL.
Effects of daytime running lights on vulnerable road users
Einfluss der Taglichtscheinwerfer auf gefährdete Verkehrsteilnehmer
2011
12 Seiten, 7 Bilder, 1 Tabelle, 7 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Daytime running lights in Denmark
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1995
|Functional Requirements for Daytime Running Lights
NTIS | 2003
|