Roadside Advertising Hits Driver Reaction Times, British Psychological Society

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 02 Apr 2008 - 4:00 PDT

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Road safety could be improved if there was a reduction in the amount of advertising and signage drivers are exposed to on the road.

So say Oliver Clark and Simon Davies of the University of Hull who will present their research into the effects of advertising on driver reaction times at the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference in Dublin today, Wednesday 2 April 2008.

In 2006 the RAC reported that too much information on the road may be hazardous. However the supporting research was not relevant to driving situations.

The current study aimed to investigate the effects of visual distractions on reaction time to things happening on the road. The researchers used an experiment in a driving simulator to examine how visual distractions might affect reaction times. 54 participants (27 male, 27 female) used a steering wheel/foot pedal joystick to perform a driving task whilst providing a foot pedal response to various road signs.

Their simulated journey was affected by four distraction settings - 'no load', where there were no distractions, 'low load' where there were three distractions, 'high load' with six and 'overload' where they experienced nine distractions as they drove the simulator.

A significant difference was found between the no load and load situations with significant increases in reaction time between the no load and high load and overload conditions.

Oliver Clark said: "One aspect of safe driving is the ability to react swiftly to dangers as they emerge on the road. This experiment shows that too much visual information in the form of advertising and signage has an effect on reaction times - the more distractions there are the slower the reaction times of the driver. We should be aware that the plethora of advertising at road sides and signage may be contributing to road accidents"

British Psychological Society