One of the probable causes of road accidents may be a high density of information which may cause the driver to miss a fact significant for dealing with an individual road traffic situation. In particular failure or distraction of the driver's attention often leads to a late recognition of the risk or insufficient information processing. The primary task of advertisement is to attract attention of consumers. Advertisements near the road undoubtedly belong to substantial distractors.
In 2017, a change in the legal regulation was made in the Czech Republic. Placement of advertising facilities has been directly prohibited in the protection zone of motorways and first-class roads. Existing advertising facilities must be removed from the vicinity of these roads. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that the advertising equipment will be moved to the vicinity of the local roads, especially in the urban areas. In-depth analysis of the security risks associated with the installation of advertisement at the border of the road transport zone is an important potential for implementing new corrective actions to reduce the incidence of driver interference.
The aim of this article is to present the results of the analysis of the impact of advertisement on the driver's attention in real road traffic. For the analysis of the selected types of advertisement equipment (small advertising equipment, billboards, bigboards and megaboards) the eyetracking methods have been used. Most of currently realized studies have analysed the influence of advertising device under simulated conditions. Therefore, this measurement has been realized in real traffic. Measurement has been carried out with 30 drivers, on 3 different routes in the city. Achieved results illustrate the negative impact of advertisement on the driver’s visual attention that has been observed and confirmed.

accident, driver, distraction, advertisement, eyetracking