Recent technological advances made a vehicle more intelligent to increase safety and comfort.
An intelligent vehicle provides drivers with safety warning information through audible sounds,
visual displays, and tactile devices. However, elderly drivers have been known to decrease the
physical and cognitive abilities such as muscular strength, hearing, eyesight, short term memory,
and spatial perception. Therefore, possible age-related deficits should be considered to design an
effective warning system. This paper aims to evaluate the impact of advancing age on response
performance on audible safety warnings which are widely used for alerting driving hazards. In
order to understand the effect of age-related hearing loss and movement slowing, three sound
characteristics (frequency, intensity, and period) and three age groups (younger, middle, and
older) are considered. Data was drawn from 38 drivers who drove a simulated rural road in a
driving simulator. Experimental results show that age influences driver’s response performance.
In conclusion, the appropriate range of a warning sound is suggested.