Situation Awareness: Its proficiency amongst older and younger drivers, and its usefulness for perceiving hazards

• Older drivers matched younger drivers in Situation Awareness (SA) scoring.
• The SA scores of younger drivers were related to their scores for hazard perception.
• Younger drivers detected a hazard more quickly than older drivers.
• Video footage of car journeys produced better SA than that captured whilst driving.
• Older drivers appeared to be less aware of what was behind their vehicles.

The two studies reported here sought to measure and compare the Situation Awareness (SA) of younger and older driver groups whilst driving (Study 1), and watching video footage of actual car journeys (Study 2). In both studies this was achieved by recording a participant’s commentary on what s/he felt was of relevance to the driving task. The narratives produced were analysed by computer software that could abstract main concepts and calculate scores indicative of Situation Awareness. In Study 2, these scores were related to others for hazard perception proficiency (also derived from participant commentaries). It was found that the older drivers matched and often exceeded the younger drivers when their SA scores were compared individually, but not when assessed as a group. However, the younger drivers out-performed their older counterparts in hazard perception ability, and this was shown to be related to their Situation Awareness score. When the results from participants who undertook both studies were compared, it was found that Situation Awareness performance was significantly higher when commenting on video footage (Study 2) than whilst actually driving (Study 1).