• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.25-37
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• 2011

This research aimed to investigate whether commercial drivers' situation awareness ability is related to their frequency and magnitude of caused accidents and penalty points. For the purpose of measuring drivers' situation perception and interpretation capacities, two tests named 'situation awareness test' and 'hazard perception test' were developed. The tests were based on the data from 299 commercial drivers (test drivers) using a driving simulator. The outcome of drivers' performance on situation awareness and hazard perception tests was designed to be categorized into 5 grades, classifying the best as grade 1 and the worst as grade 5. As the result, low grades on situation awareness test had positive relationship with accumulated penalty points, frequency of accidents and safety index. Grades on hazard perception test were also positively correlated with accident frequency and safety indices. This suggests situation awareness ability of commercial drivers is significantly related to traffic violations and accident causing tendencies.