Sensory influences on road safety

The UK government wishes to reduce traffic accidents by promoting safer behaviour on the roads (DfT, 2015). This PhD proposal relates directly to the government's aim by focusing on the driver's ability to detect hazards: improving drivers' detection ability improves road safety for all road users. Lighting is already known to affect drivers' reaction times (Lingard & Rea, 2002; Mayeur, Bremond & Bastien, 2010), but there has been no research investigating how the benefit of lighting is affected by other cognitive distractions. Considering that sound is also known to affect reaction time (Dalton, Behm & Kibele, 2007), it seems likely that lighting and auditory distraction will have an interaction effect. Investigating these sensory elements together represents a more comprehensive representation to real life than when exploring either light or auditory distraction alone.

There is one research question in particular that would be worthwhile to explore:

In what way does the interaction between visual and auditory stimuli affect drivers' reaction times?