Driving slow motorised vehicles with visual impairment—A simulator study

Purpose: To compare different driving parameters between visually impaired people and normal sighted controls in a mobility scooter and microcar driving simulator.Materials and methods: A mobility scooter and microcar driving simulator and different virtual environments were developed for the purpose of this experiment. Participants completed 4 drives in the microcar driving simulator and 8 drives in the mobility scooter driving simulator. Driving performance was compared between visually impaired and normal sighted participants, using the parameters speed, lateral position, time-to-collision, and number and type of collision.Results: Visually impaired participants did not differ significantly from normal sighted controls with regard to speed and overall lateral position. In contrast, number of collisions was higher in visually impaired participants in almost all drives. Time-to-collision differed in some, but not all of the drives. Small obstacles with low contrast posed the highest risk of collision for impaired drivers.Conclusions: The present findings showed that visually impaired participants were able to maintain a steady position on the street, but showed more difficulties in traffic situations that included obstacles and other traffic participants. Familiarity with the driving tasks seemed to improve performance, however, further research is necessary to confirm this observation.