Novice adolescent drivers are overrepresented in road crashes. Several research studies haveindicated that, compared to experienced drivers, novice drivers have underdeveloped skills inhazard perception (HP), defined as the ability to detect, evaluate and respond to dangerousevents on the road that increase the probability of a crash. Some driver licensing authorities useHazard Perception Tests (HPT) that measure reaction times or multiple-choice answers,recorded by mouse clicks, in response to videos of road scenes taken from the perspective of adrivertraveling at legal speeds.To date, evaluations of the relationship between HPT scores andnovice driver crashes have been mixed. Three potential explanations for these results are that:(1) higher crash risk drivers tend to exceed the speed limit which would offset the benefit ofimproved HP skills; (2) the current format of HP tests does not capture behavioral responses todeveloping hazards from driverswho are controlling a vehicle, and; (3) HP theory is underdevelopedand does not include a typology of driving hazards that would lead to a more finegrainedanalysis of the benefits of HP testing.To address these weaknesses, wedeveloped adriving simulator-basedHazard Response Test(HRT) where drivers select theirspeedsand respond to programmed hazard events in realtime.Nineteen hazard eventsare distributed at approximately one-minute intervals on three roadenvironments, urban, rural, and expressway. Two groups of participants, novice and experienced drivers, drove the HRT astheirresponses to the programmed hazards wererecorded. The results indicate that, compared to novice drivers, experienced drivers, on average,anticipate and respond earlierto almost all hazards. A standardized, driving simulator-basedHRThas potential applications in the training and evaluation of novice as well as experiencedand aging drivers.
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