A Cognitive Analysis of Truck Drivers’ Right-hand Turns

This paper presents an investigation of truck drivers’ performance during right-hand turns performed in intersections with traffic lights in order to elicit the truck drivers’ domain, decision-making processes, and the strategies used while executing the turn. To gain knowledge about this, a truck driving instructor is interviewed, and four truck drivers are observed and interviewed. This results in a cognitive work analysis with the phases work domain analysis, control task analysis and strategies analysis. Through this study it is indicated that many different types of information are sought using several brief glances in mirrors, and that the front and near-zone mirrors are never used during right-hand turns. Controlling the vehicle is found to be more or less automatic, whereas their focus is on the orientation about surroundings. Lastly, the drivers’ behavior is discussed in relation to change blindness and confirmation bias.