Importance of Visual Health for a Safe Driving: A Citations Network Analysis

Nowadays, due to the increase in traffic accidents, research has emphasized the importance of vision in driving. This research aims to study the relationships between publications and their corresponding authors and identify the different research areas on vision and safe driving that have awakened interest in researchers. Web of Science was the database utilized for searching publications from the first paper published (1957) to December 2021, selecting the keywords: driv*, safety, and vision. The publications' analysis was made using the CitNetExplorer, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace software. A total of 3,777 publications and 3,887 citation networks were found. In 2019, there was a total of 391 publications and 15 citation networks. The most cited publication was "Older Drivers and Cataract: Driving Habits and Crash Risk" published by Owsley et al. in 1999, with 76 as citation index. By the clustering function, five groups were found that cover the main research areas in this field: ocular movements, detection systems, road safety, and age. The citation network offers both, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the main articles. Being a multidisciplinary field of study, current research emphasizes the importance of eye movements while driving, the visual impairment in elderly drivers, and the new video-based detection systems.