Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Visual Occlusion as a Surrogate Distraction Measurement Technique

As can be seen throughout this book, driver distraction, regardless of the source, is a potentially serious safety problem. If a driver is not attending to the environment in which the vehicle is being operated, and if something changes in that environment, then the driver may have to act to avoid a crash. Driving has been described as years of boredom interrupted by seconds of terror. Driver distraction increases the probability that the driver will experience those seconds of terror.