Chiang and colleagues evaluated the implications of adding green plants along the sides of roads. They share that “if driver reaction time (RT) can be reduced, drivers would have more time to assess the situation and take appropriate action to avoid the accident. . . . A driving simulator was employed to simulate highways with five road greening doses. During the simulation, an emergency incident was designed and video-displayed, and driver RT in the context of that situation was recorded. . . . The results revealed that with increased dose of road greening, driver attention level increased. In addition, a higher dose of greening resulted in a shorter RT during an emergency incident.”
Yen-Cheng Chiang, Rou-An Ke, Dongying Li, and Pei-Yi Weng. “Greening and Safety: The Influence of Road Greenness on Driver’s Attention and Emergency Reaction Time.” Environment and Behavior, in press, https://doi.org/10.1177/00139165221147627