Effects of Driver Gender, Driving Experience, and Visibility on Car-Following Behavior

Weather visibility interference has a significant impact on driver car-following behavior. To investigate drivers’ car-following behavior and emergency avoidance behaviors under different visibility disturbances, scenarios are constructed under different foggy concentration environments based on driving simulation, and the drivers’ response behaviors are collected in the stable car-following state and emergency rear-end scenarios. Exploring the differential effects of gender and driving experience on driving behavior for fog concentrations based on multifactorial analysis of variance. A quantitative model of car-following risk is constructed based on factor analysis, and a linear mixed model is used to explore the comprehensive effects of fog concentration, speed, and the following distance at the braking time on drivers’ braking reaction time by fully considering the differences in individual behaviors. The results show that driving behavior is significantly affected by visual visibility, driver’s gender, and driving experience. With the decrease of visibility, following driving speed decreases, the following distance is shortened, the headway decreases, and the standard deviation of lane lateral offset distance increases. The rear-end collision risk of an experienced driver is higher than that of a novice driver, and the rear-end collision risk of the female is higher than that of male. The risk of collision is higher when traveling in light fog. In emergency rear-end collision scenarios, as visibility decreases, braking reaction time increases, and the risk of collision conflict increases at the moment of driver braking. The braking reaction time of the driver decreases with the increase of the speed and increases with the increase of the distance when the front vehicle is braking. The results of this study provide theoretical support and technical reference for effectively improving driving safety in a bad-visibility environment.