Increasing Following Headway in a Driving Simulator and Transfer to Real World Driving

ABSTRACT

The effects of a package intervention including prompts, goal setting, feedback, education, and behavioral self-monitoring to increase following headway (decrease tailgating) of three young drivers were evaluated in a simulated driving environment. Another objective of the present study was to determine if the effects of the package intervention would maintain in the simulator and transfer to real-world driving by assessing driving behavior recorded using a black box video camera in the participants’ vehicles. During intervention, drivers were prompted to increase following headway and were provided a specific target for following headway. The participants were asked to estimate following headway after each session and when the session ended were given feedback on actual following headway. The introduction of the treatment package in the simulator was associated with an increase in following headway for all participants. During the reversal phase maintenance occurred for all participants. The effects transferred to real-world driving for all participants. Teaching young drivers in a simulator to increase following headway may be one strategy to decrease the risk of crashes.

KEYWORDS:

• Behavioral self-monitoring
• driving simulator
• feedback
• following headway
• goal setting
• maintenance of effects
• prompts
• tailgating

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Yee Wen Sing, Kara Sidorowicz, Melissa Kellogg, and Adam Labine for their assistance in data collection.

Disclosure statement

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Highway Administration or the United States. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.