Content area
Full text
Li Yuan 1, 2 and Yong-feng Ma 3 and Zhi-yi Lei 1 and Peng Xu 1
Academic Editor:Heiner Bubb
1, College of Civil and Transportation Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
2, Key Laboratory of Highway Engineering, Changshang University of Science & Technology, Changshang 410014, China
3, School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
Received 7 July 2014; Accepted 22 August 2014; 13 November 2014
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
1. Introduction
Traffic signs provide important information, guidelines, and warnings on the road. The warning sign is a type of traffic sign that indicates the hazards ahead on the road, which may not be readily apparent to a driver [1]. However, questions such as how about comprehension level of drivers' on warning signs? is there a relationship between drivers' comprehension of warning signs and individual factor? how to improve a sign symbol of low misunderstanding warning signs are investigated in this study. Many crashes occur because drivers are suddenly confronted by the unexpected dangers. The drivers should be warned by means of warning signs for any dangerous situations ahead; namely, they need to be well known and understood by drivers. US Department of Transportation [2] claimed to have a 34% reduction in fatal accidents when an improvement project for traffic signs is implemented. However, if warning signs are not correctly understood by the drivers, these signs serve little purpose. There is a need for detailed research of the comprehension and improvement of warning signs [3].
Warning signs have been a topic of considerable interest to researchers. Dewar [4] found that understandability or comprehension was rated as the most important factor in general and specifically for each of the types of warning and informational symbols. Shinar and Vogelzang [5] studied the comprehension of traffic signs with symbolic-versus-text displays and found that correctness improved when the symbol was shown with text, especially when the sign was less familiar. Chan and Ng [6] found that people were better able to guess the meaning of signs that were familiar, concrete, simple, and meaningful. Ng and Chan [7] studied the influence of a symbol's...