Performance of Driver-Vehicle in Aborted Lane Change Maneuvers

A “lane change crash” is defined as a family of collisions that occurred when a driver attempts to change lane and strikes or is struck by a vehicle in the adjacent lane. One type of maneuvers that is commonly used to avert a lane change crash involved aborting the intended lane change, and returning the vehicle to the original lane of the subject vehicle. This study addresses the performance of driver-vehicle systems in aborted lane change maneuvers. We first compared the recorded steering command of an experienced driver in executing a lane change maneuver with that determined via solving a suitably formulated optimization problem, and found them to be qualitatively comparable. This finding allows us to analytically assess whether an experienced driver can successfully avert a lane change crash if he responsed to the warning from a collision detection system T_e seconds after the initiation of the lane change maneuver. Quantitative relations between pre-crash vehicle variables, including the nominal speed of the subject vehicle, the closing speed between the subject vehicle and principal other vehicle, the longitudinal and lateral gap distances, and T_e are determined. Results obtained can be used to guide the development of collision warning devices and other lane change/merge crash avoidance counter-measures.