Simulation of Landscape Impact on Driving Safety on Road Bends in Mountain Area

A simulation process was built to address the impact of landscapes on driving safety on road bends in mountain area. In the simulation, the judgment method of transverse slide accidents of vehicles, the generation method of obstacles or other vehicles within the front view of a driver, the calculation method of the sight distance of the driver, and the judgment method of the vehicle safety state are discussed in detail. Then, a simulation program written with VB language was used to analyze the impact of vehicle speed, bend radius and landscape position on the safety of vehicles. The results show that the risk probability of vehicles is reduced by about 58% on a large-radius bend than that on a small-radius bend when the two landscapes have the same distance from roadside and the road design speed is 60 km/h. With the same bend radius, the risk probability of vehicles in case of high road design speed was smaller than that in case of low one; for example, the risk probability is reduced by about 33% when the road design speed is increased from 80 to 60 km/h on a medium-radius bend.