Fred Owens, a psychology professor at Franklin & Marshall College, is working on a collaborative research project that could become a model for road construction and safety.

F&M, along with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the Texas Transportation Institute, has received a $700,000 two-year grant to study drivers' visual perception and behavior in simulated road environments.

Owens, who has been studying visual perception in drivers for 30 years, said that one of the focuses of the project is nighttime driving.

"This is the most interesting, because everyone is partially blind at night," Owens said. "Even though it's dark outside, driver behavior doesn't change much."

The fatality rate for wrecks that occur at night is 3 percent to 4 percent higher compared to wrecks that happen during daylight hours, according to Owens' research.

A common problem, Owens said, is that drivers "overdrive their headlights" at night and can't stop in time to avoid hitting something.

In May, Owens will travel to Virginia Tech Institute to research driver perception and behavior using the school's "smart road."

The smart road is a 2.2-mile state-of-the-art closed test-bed research center managed by the school.

During the research, Owens and his colleagues will change such variables as lighting, spacing, vehicle response, striping, signage and weather conditions.

Through the experiments, Owens said he hopes to further understand how drivers perceive and react to road conditions.

"We are testing what drivers look at and how accurately they perceive and respond to all types of situations and objects on the road," Owens said.

Through the years, Owens has studied driver perception in laboratories using simulators and by conducting experiments on the road.

Owens said actual road research is a challenge.

"That's very difficult to do and presents a whole string of problems and safety issues," Owens said.

Part of Owens' research involves guidance vision, which solely has to do with one's own actions, and recognition vision, which deals with the objects and conditions around a driver.

"When it is dark or dim, a driver's recognition vision is impaired, making it hard or impossible to see pedestrians or animals," Owens said.

According to the World Health Organization, 200,000 pedestrians are killed globally each year because of wrecks.

WHO predicts that number will rise to 1 million in the next few years because developing countries such as China and India have trouble gauging driver and road safety, mainly because there are such diverse modes of transportation.

F&M senior Andrew Osborn got involved in the grant project last summer when he took a sensation and perception course with Owens.

Osborn said he conducted extensive research about how novice and experienced drivers realize and react to "road scenes," or unsafe driving scenarios.

"I thought it was really, really interesting," Osborn of Radnor said.

As part of the research, Osborn and a fellow student set up a computer-based gaze-tracking device to measure how drivers perceive and react to road conditions.

To obtain road footage, Osborn videotaped different roads in Lancaster County where traffic conditions and environmental factors are starkly different.

Osborn said he found the experiments fascinating.

"I was glad to be a part of it," he said. "It will help make better roads and teach drivers how to drive the road and not let the road drive them."

E-mail: mpennino@lnpnews.com