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Archives of Medicine
ISSN: 1989-5216
July 26-27, 2018
Rome, Italy
Ergonomics & Human factors 2018
Page 30
1 st Edition of International Conference on
Ergonomics &
Human Factors
In many countries the growth of the older population is seen
as an increasing risk factor in motorized traffic. Analyzing the
function relating traffic accidents to age group, it appears that, in
contrast, by far the great majority of traffic accidents is caused
by younger drivers, startingwith a peak in the age range of 16-18.
While the accident rate after the age of 24 is decreasing strongly,
it is at a minimum between 40 and 60. It is only after the age of
70 that accident rate is increasing again, but at a relatively low
rate. An interesting phenomenon is that accidents involving a
female driver are significantly less frequent than those involving
male drivers, by at least a factor of 2, and often even more.
This same difference in accident liability is also found in other
fields, for traffic it has been shown for flying planes, but also in a
vastly different range of jobs in industry- jobs equated for males
and females. The difference has been attributed to a different
perception of risk. One important factor in traffic behavior,
then, is risk perception that evolves over the years, becoming
more detailed and comprehensive and supported by years of
experience. Both the higher accident rates at young ages and
high ages point to another factor, the development of attention.
Focused attention only develops relatively slowly with age, and,
like visual acuity reaches a plateau around the age of 21. Unlike
what is frequently assumed, older people have a higher focused
attention level than younger ones, but this can be offset by the
interaction of distracting information. Newdatawill be presented
that shed light on attentional processes in old and young people,
and that also make clear that visual acuity is hardly related to
traffic accidents.
Recent Publications
1. Juola JF et al. (1991) Control of attentionaround the fovea.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception
and Performance. 17(1):125-141.
2. Bouwhuis D G (2017) A Framework for the acceptance of
Gerontechnology in relation to smart living. In Handbook
of Smart Homes, Health Care and Well-Being. Springer.
Cham. Pages:33-51. Doi:10.1007/978-3-319-01583-5_3.
3. Bouwhuis D G (2017) Reasons why ergonomics cannot
make interactive devices to be user-friendly (k>3), Journal
of Ergonomics 2017, 7:195, DOI 10.4172/2165-1000195 .
Biography
Don G Bouwhuis has a background in cognitive science, mathematics and
computer science. After a career in industrial research he was appointed Pro-
fessor of Cognitive Engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology, The
Netherlands. He has carried out research on cognitive functioning in older peo-
ple, in visual attention, image quality and on the interfaces of truck cabins. He
was one of the Founders of the International Society of Gerontology. He has
been a Research Fellow at the Cognitive Science Department, University of Cal-
ifornia at San Diego, the LIMSI (Computer Science Laboratory for Mechanics
and Engineering Sciences)-C.N.R.S at Orsay, France, the Technion at Haifa, Is-
rael and GeorgiaTech in Atlanta, USA. He taught at the University of Melbourne,
Australia and The University of Technology at Cao Tun, Nantou, Taiwan.
Two factors in traffic accidents in young and
older drivers
Don G Bouwhuis
Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Don G Bouwhuis, Arch Med 2018, Volume 10
DOI: 10.21767/1989-5216-C1-001