Driving Behaviour in Unexpected Situations

Do car drivers change their driving style after compensating for safetycritical events? What are the effects of mental workload? And how do drivers prioritize their driving (sub)tasks? This thesis aims to answer these questions by describing two large driving simulator experiments. The results show that drivers temporarily change their driving style after a safety-critical event; the duration of this change is affected by mental workload level. Drivers with increased mental workload drive less cautiously and respond only to highly safety-critical events, but they do prioritize safe driving when this workload gets too high.