Analysis of Distractions for Teenage Drivers Utilizing a Car Simulator

An experiment was designed and implemented at the University of Tennessee to find the most important factors affecting teenager driving behavior. The factors included distraction, road condition, and gender. Response variables were standard deviation of velocity, standard deviation of lane position, and mean velocity. ANOVA and mixed model were used to determine if distractions, gender, and road condition affected response variables. Additionally, distractions were ranked based on their impact on the response variables’ values. The participants were 22 teenage drivers (16-18 years old), driving in a Ford Focus simulated car. They were faced with 11 internal distractions.