Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate how various factors affect myopic drivers’ nighttime driving skills and nighttime risk perception. A total of 400 myopic drivers and 100 non-myopic drivers participated in the study. The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that included demographic information, a quality of life scale, a nighttime driving skills scale, and a nighttime risk perception scale. To explore the correlations and differences among demographic information, quality of life, myopic drivers’ nighttime driving skills and nighttime risk perceptions, bivariate correlation analysis and analyses of covariance were conducted on data from 364 valid myopic drivers’ questionnaires and 81 valid non-myopic drivers’ questionnaires. Moreover, a structural equation model was built to explore the predictors of myopic drivers’ driving skills and risk perception at night and to measure the relationships among various factors. The results indicate that non-myopic drivers reported a lower level of nighttime risk perception than myopic drivers, whereas their nighttime driving skill was significantly higher than that of myopic drivers. Female myopic drivers reported significantly higher risk perception and lower driving ability than males. Additionally, drivers with at least a bachelor degree had higher nighttime risk perception than drivers without a college degree. As the degree of myopia increased, nighttime driving ability decreased, and nighttime risk perception improved. Myopic drivers’ quality of life was the strongest predictor of nighttime driving skills and nighttime risk perception. These findings suggest that further studies of myopic drivers’ driving behaviors should not only consider their visual characteristics, but also explore the relationship between their quality of life and driving behaviors, especially for highly myopic drivers.

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Acknowledgements
This paper was supported by the “National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 51578207, 51678211)”, “The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (no. JZ2017 HGTB 0209)” and “Anhui Science and Technology Project -Sci-tech Police (no. 1704d0802189)”.
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Wang, K., Zhang, W., Liu, J. et al. Exploring the factors affecting myopic drivers’ driving skills and risk perception in nighttime driving. Cogn Tech Work 21, 275–285 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-018-0492-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-018-0492-0