The effect of fog on detection of driving hazards after dark. (November 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fotios, S; Cheal, C; Fox, S; Uttley, J
• Is Part Of: Lighting research & technology. Volume 50:Number 7(2018)
• Page Start: 1024
• Page End: 1044
• Publication Date: 2018-11
• Subjects: Lighting -- Periodicals; 621.32
• DOI: 10.1177/1477153517725774
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1477-1535

Abstract

The presence of fog leads to an increase in road traffic accidents. An experiment was carried out using a scale model to investigate how the detection of hazards in peripheral vision was affected by changes in luminance (0.1 cd/m 2 and 1.0 cd/m 2 road surface luminance), scotopic/photopic (S/P) ratio (0.65 and 1.40) and fog density (none, thin and thick). Two hazards were used, a road surface obstacle and lane change of another vehicle. Increasing luminance, and reducing from thick to thin fog, led to significant increase in detection rate and a reduction in reaction time, for both types of hazard. The effect of a change in S/P ratio was significant only when measuring detection of the surface obstacle using reaction times, under the thick fog, with an increase in S/P ratio leading to a shorter reaction time.