BLOCKING the view of drivers is the best way to prevent accidents at
crossroads, according to researchers in Japan.
A team from the Japan Automobile Research Institute in Tsukuba noticed that
accidents happened much more frequently at crossroads where drivers had a clear
field of view, suggesting that people may drive more cautiously when they aren鈥檛
quite sure what is coming.
To test this theory, Nobuyuki Uchida spent six months in the Netherlands
working at the Centre for Environmental and Traffic Psychology in the University
of Groningen. In his experiment, 18 people aged between 20 and 40 were given six
turns each at the steering-wheel of a simulator. Each time they had to drive
along an imaginary 6-kilometre road at 60 kilometres an hour, passing 18
intersections along the way. As soon as they saw a car coming down one of the
side roads they had to press a button.
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Uchida found that drivers noticed cars more quickly when their view was
partially obscured by a small fence. Cars approaching down a clear road were
spotted 50 metres from the crossroads on average. But when the side road was
partly obscured, the distance increased to 60 metres. Uchida is now trying to
determine how far from the intersection the obstructing fence needs to be to
gain the most benefit.
鈥淥nce the research project is over we don鈥檛 have any plans to try it out on a
real road鈥攊t鈥檚 too dangerous,鈥� says fellow researcher Tsuyoshi Katayama,
adding that police have expressed an interest in trying it out, under
supervision, at a real junction.