Analysis of Driver Brake Operation In Near-Crash Situation Using Naturalistic Driving Data

A large scale of field-test investigation was conducted in Beijing using Video Drive Recorder (VDR) which could record image in front of the vehicle. Fifty taxis equipped with VDR were used to collect data in real traffic environments for a whole year and a large volume of naturalistic driving data including crashes and near-crashes was collected. This paper analyzed the pre-event maneuvers of drivers and studied the characteristics of braking operations of Conflict-prone drivers. Then an evaluation method was proposed to rate a driver's accidents avoidance ability, and to evaluate the relationships between driver's brake behaviors and accident rates. The results showed that most evasive maneuvers were within 2s before the most dangerous state. By comparing the near-crashes with crashes recorded by the VDR regarding traffic accidents in Beijing, great similarities were found in accident type and occurrence time between them. According to 100 rear-end near-crashes, if the braking time of drivers were delayed by 0.2s, 17% of near-crashes would have been crashes; and if the braking forces were decreased by 0.1g, 33% of near-crashes would have been crashes.