Gap acceptance and risk-taking by young and mature drivers, both sober and alcohol-intoxicated, in a simulated driving task

A single-blind randomized study was conducted on young (18-21 years, n = 16) and mature (25-35 years, n = 16) drivers to assess how age, combined with a modest dose of alcohol (0.7 g/kg for males and 0.6 g/kg for females), influenced performance on a driving simulator. The driving tasks included detecting the presence of a vehicle on the horizon as quickly as possible, estimating the point on the road that an approaching vehicle would have passed by the participants' vehicle (time-to-collision) and overtaking another vehicle against a steady stream of oncoming traffic. The results of the vehicle detection task showed that detection times were significantly slower with maturity, alcohol consumption and lower approaching vehicle speeds (50 kph), particularly on curved sections of road. Approaching vehicle speed was also found to significantly influence time-to-collision (TTC) judgments, such that faster approach speeds led to less underestimated (and therefore riskier) judgments of TTC than slower speeds. In the overtaking task, mature participants demonstrated impaired discrimination skills with varying approaching vehicle speeds, while young participants recorded significantly slower speeds while overtaking a vehicle, thus increasing the time that they spent in the opposing lane. In conclusion, young and mature drivers demonstrated pivotal differences in behavior in this study. Young drivers showed a greater tendency to engage in risky driving, while experienced drivers appeared to be more susceptible to perceptual influences. Overall, alcohol consumption impaired a driver's ability to divide attention, but had little effect on decision-making processes.