USEFULFIELD OF VIEW AND RISK OF ACCIDENT IN SIMULATED CAR DRIVING

This study investigated the relationship between useful field of view and simulator -driving performancemeasure s. ninety profe ssional dr ivers, aged 22-65 years from several gove rnmen t organizat ions vo luntarilyparticipated at this study. useful field of view was measured by a computerized task was developed at thepresent study . the participant s then performed a driv ing simu lator task and expe rienced a scenario thatcould lead to an accident. reaction time and spe ed were measured and recorded by simulator and ge neraldriving performance and collision events were recorded by examiner. the reduction of useful field ofview based on subject' s err or score on useful fie ld of view subtests between young and old groupstat istically was analyzed. correlation analyses used to examine the relationship amo ng the use ful field ofview as an independent variable and driving performance measures as a dependent variab les. a univar iatelogistic regression ana lysis was used to determine the extent to which red uction of useful field of viewpredict s risk of accident in simulated car drivi ng. there was a signific ant and nega tive correlation be twee nuseful field of view and simulator performance, on the div ided peripheral subtest (correlationcoeffic ient=-0.28 ). stud ent's t-tests revealed significant differences in peripheral scores of useful field ofview subtests between accident involved and non- involved gro ups. the resu lt of logistic regr essionindicated that 40% reduction of useful field of view, reg ardless of age, increased risk of acc identinvolvement. use ful fie ld of view coul d be used to predict driving performance and risk of accident. theobtained result can help to identify a high risk driver which is useful to licen sing authorities .