Fifty years of driving safety research

This brief review covers the 50 years of driving-related research published in Human Factors, its contribution to driving safety, and emerging challenges.

Many factors affect driving safety, making it difficult to assess the impact of specific factors such as driver age, cell phone distractions, or collision warnings.

The author considers the research themes associated with the approximately 270 articles on driving published in Human Factors in the past 50 years.

To a large extent, current and past research has explored similar themes and concepts. Many articles published in the first 25 years focused on issues such as driver impairment, individual differences, and perceptual limits. Articles published in the past 25 years address similar issues but also point toward vehicle technology that can exacerbate or mitigate the negative effect of these issues. Conceptual and computational models have played an important role in this research.

Improved crash-worthiness has contributed to substantial improvements in driving safety over the past 50 years, but future improvements will depend on enhancing driver performance and perhaps, more important, improving driver behavior. Developing models to guide this research will become more challenging as new technology enters the vehicle and shifts the focus from driver performance to driver behavior.

Over the past 50 years, Human Factors has accumulated a large base of driving-related research that remains relevant for many of today's design and policy concerns.