Older drivers’ acceptance of vehicle warning functions and the influence of driving experience

Abstract

Warning functions in vehicles can be very useful to older drivers for avoiding crashes due to failure to perceive the danger of a situation. This study investigated older drivers’ acceptance of vehicle warning functions and the influence of driving experience. The results indicated that, in general, the perceived importance of external environment warnings is significantly higher than the perceived importance of car status warnings and driver condition warnings to older drivers. However, driving experience significantly influences the perceived importance of warning functions. With increasing driving experience, both the perceived importance of external environment warnings and the perceived importance of car status warnings significantly decrease. There is no decrease in the perceived importance of driver condition warning functions.