Role of driver assistance experience, system functionality, gender, age and sensation seeking in attitudes towards the safety of driver assistance systems

A questionnaire study was conducted that probed driver safety-related attitudes towards driver assistance systems (DAS). 211 drivers participated in the questionnaire survey. The participant DAS experience ranged from almost none to a high level of experience. Drivers were asked about their risk-related safety-related attitudes towards 29 different systems that are currently available on the market. Potential influencing variables that were expected to affect driver safety-related attitudes towards DAS - gender, age, level of driver sensation seeking and driver DAS use experience - were considered: results show that, in terms of safety, there is great variation in how drivers evaluate the 29 systems. Consequently, systems functionality and the time when the system was launched are discussed. No general effects were found for gender and level of sensation seeking on safety-related attitudes towards DAS. Driver age correlated positively with indirect safety-related attitudes towards 26 of the 29 systems. Controlling the variable `DAS use experience´, 22 relations between age and attitudes towards DAS were found. Results reveal that the more experience drivers have in using DAS, the higher they judge DAS in terms of safety. On the basis of the study results, research issues for future research on traffic safety related to DAS were identified.