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It is inevitable that as a person ages they will encounter different physical and cognitive impairments as well as dynamic social issues. We started this project under the assumption that autonomous driving would greatly benefit the fastest growing population in developed countries, the elderly. However, the larger question at hand was how are older drivers going to interact with future automated driving systems? It was through the qualitative research we conducted that we were able to uncover the answer to this question; older drivers are not willing to give up “control” to autonomous cars. As interaction designers, we need to define what type of interactions need to occur in these future automated driving systems, so older drivers still feel independent and in control when driving. Lawrence D. Burns, former Vice president of Research and Development at General Motors and author of Reinventing the Automobile Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century talks about two driving factors that will shape the future of the automobile. These factors are energy and connectivity (Burns et al., 2010). We would add a third one, which is control. If we address these three factors we might be able to bridge the gap between how we drive today and how we will drive in the future and thus create more cohesive future automated driving systems.

The purpose of this study was to determine if a police officer's use of alcohol in his/her personal life affected their arrest decision in impaired driving cases. A survey was developed and reviewed by a jury of experts consisting of traffic safety specialists from across Indiana, to gather information concerning officer demographics, use of alcohol, and belief in the importance of impaired driving enforcement. Results indicated that sixty-one (61) officers fit the criteria of 1) patrolling during darkness hours throughout the year 2002, and 2) were complete the survey. Most officers were male (88%), between twenty-one and thirty-five years of age (79%), and had less than ten years of law enforcement experience (74%).The data were analyzed using univariate, bivariate, and ANOVA to test the null hypothesis. There was no statistical relationship between the decision to arrest and the personal use of alcohol by the officer. There was also no statistical relationship between the decision to arrest and any of the demographic categories. The only item that showed a statistical relationship was between the decision to arrest and an officer indicating they believed the problem of impaired driving was somewhat important. / Department of Physiology and Health Science

This descriptive study focuses on analyzing the factors influencing public debate on intensified Finnish-Swedish defence cooperation, using qualitative abductive content analysis (a combination of Grounded theory analysis and text/content analysis) as the research method. The study was conducted using a model adapted from Tomas Valasek’s hypothesis on pooling and sharing (Surviving Austerity - The case for a new approach to EU military collaboration, 2011), inducted from a corpus collected from Finnish and Swedish public defence debates from 1.1.2013 to 31.3.2014. The main research question is: what are the driving forces influencing debate on intensified bilateral Finnish-Swedish defence. Secondary research questions were developed from the corpus in four categories: historical, political/military, economic and attitudinal factors. Using these as the analysis model, the corpus was deductively analyzed to increase understanding of the individual factors and to find driving forces. The main result of this study is that the existence or lack of trust is seen as a key driving force influencing debate, either furthering or hindering cooperation. Other driving forces seen as influencing debate are the existence or lack of: understanding of the historical background of cooperation from both countries’ point of view commitment and clarity of political/military goals political commitment to the political/military purposes of cooperation instead of domestic economic gain a legally binding framework for cooperation.

Autonomous Driving or self driving vehicles are concepts of vehicles knowing their environment and making driving manoeuvres without instructions from a driver. The concepts have been around for decades but has improved significantly in the last years since research in this area has made significant progress. Benefits of autonomous driving include the possibility to decrease the number of accidents in traffic and thereby saving lives. A major challenge in autonomous driving is to acquire 3D information and relations between all objects in surrounding traffic. This is referred to as \textit{spatial perception}. Stereo camera systems have become a central sensor module for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving. For object detection and measurements at large distances stereo vision encounter difficulties. This includes objects being small, having low contrast and the presence of image noise. Having an accurate perception of the environment at large distances is however of high interest for many applications, especially autonomous driving. This thesis proposes a method which tries to increase the range to where generic objects are first detected using a given stereo camera setup. Objects are represented by planes in 3D space. The input image is segmented into the various objects and the 3D plane parameters are estimated jointly. The 3D plane parameters are estimated directly from the stereo image pairs. In particular, this thesis investigates methods to introduce geometric constraints to the segmentation or labeling task, i.e assigning each considered pixel in the image to a plane. The methods provided in this thesis show that despite the difficulties at large distances it is possible to exploit planar primitives in 3D space for obstacle detection at distances where other methods fail. / En autonom bil innebär att bilen har en uppfattning om sin omgivning och kan utifran det ta beslut angående hur bilen ska manövreras. Konceptet med självkörande bilar har existerat i årtionden men har utvecklats snabbt senaste åren sedan billigare datorkraft finns lättare tillgänglig. Fördelar med autonomiska bilar innebär bland annat att antalet olyckor i trafiken minskas och därmed liv räddas. En av de största utmaningarna med autonoma bilar är att få 3D information och relationer mellan objekt som finns i den omgivande trafikmiljön. Detta kallas för spatial perception och innebär att detektera alla objekt och tilldela en korrekt postition till dem. Stereo kamerasystem har fått en central roll för avancerade förarsystem och autonoma bilar. För detektion av objekt på stora avstånd träffar stereo system på svårigheter. Detta inkluderar väldigt små objekt, låg kontrast och närvaron av brus i bilden. Att ha en ackurativ perception på stora avstånd är dock vitalt för många applikationer, inte minst autonoma bilar. Den här rapporten föreslar en metod som försöker öka avståndet till där objekt först upptäcks. Objekt representeras av plan i 3D rymden. Bilder givna från stereo par segmenteras i olika object och plan parametrar estimeras samtidigt. Planens parametrar estimeras direkt från stereo bild paren. Den här rapporten utreder metoder att introducera gemoetriska begränsningar att använda vid segmenteringsuppgiften. Metoderna som presenteras i denna rapport visar att trots den höga närvaron av brus på stora avstånd är det möjligt att estimera geometriska objekt som är starka nog att möjliggöra detektion av objekt på ett avstand där andra metoder misslyckas.

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This study explored the current state of alcohol-impaired driving as well as the changes in alcohol-impaired driving over time among Albertans. Based on self-report data from the annual Alberta Surveys 1991, 1992, 1997, and 2009, this study also traced the shift in the impact of standard demographic factors on alcohol-impaired driving in the province. Furthermore, the study examined social influence in alcohol-impaired driving in a representative sample in Alberta. Results indicated that in the past 12 months, 4% of the respondents had driven a vehicle while impaired, and 6.1% of the respondents had been passengers in a vehicle driven by an impaired driver. Chi-square test indicated that male, single, employed, non-religious, and younger respondents were more likely to have driven while impaired. Logistic regression analyses showed that a one-unit increase in social influence was associated with 5.32 times greater odds of engaging in impaired driving (OR = 5.32, 95% CI = 3.069.24, p < .001), controlling for other variables in the model. Findings also showed that self-reported alcohol-impaired driving has decreased substantially over the years (10.6% in 1991, 8.4% in 1992, 7.2% in 1997, and 3.7% in 2009). However, there had been little changes in designated driving. In addition, there had been a shift in age-related impaired driving, i.e., people aged 55-65+ reported impaired driving more in 2009 (4.8%) compared to 1991 (2.0%) and 1992 (2.2%); while individuals aged 18-34 and 35-54 reported impaired driving less in 2009 (4.8% and 2.6%, respectively) compared to 1991 (12.7% and 13.0%, respectively). The policy implications of the findings are discussed.

This thesis tests one of the major propositions of deterrence theory: that increases in the severity of punishment can reduce the likelihood of offending. To this end, a case study in which the statutory penalties were doubled for almost all drink-driving offences in New South Wales, Australia, is examined. Two quasi-experimental studies were undertaken to assess the impact of these legislative changes: an interrupted time-series analysis of road crash rates (Study 1) and an analysis of drink-driving reoffending rates before and after the penalty changes were implemented (Study 2). Study 1 showed a significant increase in a surrogate measure of alcohol-related road crashes after the tougher drink-driving penalties were introduced. Further analyses suggested that this increase was driven primarily by a secular rise in non alcohol-related crashes that coincided with the policy???s implementation. Two possible conclusions about the deterrent effect of the policy are drawn from these findings: (1) that there was a reduction in alcohol-related road crashes which was overwhelmed by the rise in non alcohol-related crashes occurring around the same time or (2) that there was no change in crash rates. Study 2 found that drink-drivers who were convicted under the new penalty regime were less likely, and took longer, to reoffend than drink-drivers convicted before the introduction of the new penalties. This reduction in reoffending was only apparent for drink-drivers residing in country and regional areas and was small in magnitude.These latter findings are consistent with the possibility that the penalty changes coincided with a reduction in alcohol-related crashes but suggest that any decrease is likely to have been relatively small. A third study using a scenario-based survey methodology was also undertaken to examine the relationship between legal sanctions and willingness to drink-drive, controlling for other factors. The results of this study showed that participants who were more knowledgeable about drink-driving penalties were less likely to state that they would offend in the drink-driving scenario than participants who were less knowledgeable about the law. The implications of these findings for deterrence theory and criminal justice policy are discussed.

The aim of this thesis was to examine the extent, and correlates, of self-regulation of driving behaviour among a sample of South Australian older drivers (aged 60 or more). The first of four studies was an analysis of official crash statistics in South Australia over a period of five years. The patterns of crash involvement for South Australian older drivers were found to resemble those reported in the literature for other jurisdictions. Lower levels of crash involvement for older drivers in difficult driving situations (peak hour, rain, darkness) were interpreted as indirect evidence for self-regulation of driving behaviour. The second study involved pilot testing a measure developed specifically for assessing the visual attention of older adults (the Computerised Visual Attention Test - CVAT). The CVAT assesses visual attention by measuring target detection and reaction time for central and peripheral stimuli, and in conditions requiring selective and divided attention. The third study involved assessing the test-retest reliability, construct validity and predictive validity of the CVAT. It was concluded that the CVAT is a reliable measure of abilities including, but not restricted to, attention, and that it is correlated with on-road driving ability. The fourth study involved an examination of the driving behaviour and attitudes of 104 drivers aged over 60, with avoidance of difficult driving situations providing an index of self-regulation. These drivers also completed a battery of tests measuring psychological factors, vision, physical functioning, various cognitive abilities, and attention (the CVAT). Ninety participants additionally completed an on-road assessment of driving ability. It was found that older drivers most often avoided reverse parallel parking and driving at night in the rain, while driving alone was avoided least often. Measures of visual attention, medication use and visual acuity were most predictive of levels of self-regulation, while poorer driving ability was only associated with avoidance of a small number of specific situations. Functional deficits related to poorer driving ability but not to self-regulation included poorer contrast sensitivity, speed of information processing and spatial memory. Such deficits could identify drivers who may need to restrict their driving more than they do. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Department of Psychology, 2004.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Linköping : Univ., 2001. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.