Driver’s Visual Distraction Characteristics Based on Traffic Flow Category

The use of mobile phones during driving can lead to visual distraction. In order to study the impact of visual distraction on driving safety, a simulation driving platform is used to set up two types of traffic environments: free flow and following flow. Fifty drivers intermittently use their mobile phone as a driving sub-task to simulate the natural driving process. Eye movement parameters such as gaze time, gaze area, and gaze deviation are collected, as well as vehicle motion parameters such as vehicle speed and acceleration during the distraction and normal driving. The experimental data was analyzed according to BeGaze and Matlab. The results show that the driver’s gaze area deviates from the main field of view when distracted under different traffic flow conditions, and the search path changes in a jump; the distraction in the follow-up flow state, the driver’s effective visual search range decreases more intensely.