Passenger Presence and Turning Direction

This study investigated how drivers react in the event of a car accident at a T intersection when there is a passenger present in the vehicle. We want to determine if the presence of a passenger will affect the driver’s choice to take over the automated vehicles performance and either turn left or right to avoid a crash. The driver would be presented with this situation due to the silent failure of the automated vehicle. We hypothesize that the presence of a passenger and the non-presence of a passenger will affect which way drivers will turn to avoid a potential crash. Specifically, we hypothesized that participants would favor turning left when no passenger is present and turning right when a passenger is present. To test this hypothesis, we had participants avoid a crash at a T-intersection of a self-driving car in a driving simulator. We had participants drive with conditions that mimic passenger presence and use both hands when driving so the turning direction would be primarily determined by passenger presence. As a result, Placeholder sentence regarding findings, participants steered to the XX when the presence of a passenger was mimicked. Keywords: automated vehicles, take–over performance, silent failur