Speed and Accuracy in Driver Emergency Avoidance

When faced with a potential hazard, drivers often need to evaluate the situation and choose an avoidance maneuver quickly. Studies of emergency perception-response time by drivers have reported a range of mean values, and a number of factors have been identified or proposed to account for some of the variability between and within studies. One factor that has not attracted much attention in this literature is response accuracy. We propose that examination of this literature from within a speed/accuracy tradeoff framework may help explain some of the range of findings in driver reaction time research. This perspective may be useful when applying research results to practical questions such as motor vehicle accident reconstruction.