Biometric Devices: Can An Electronic Driving Coach Make Safer Roads?
If your state hasn’t banned the use of handheld phones while driving, it’s likely that it will soon join the increasing number of states that have, but as a recent article posted by the University of Washington states, it’s a difficult law to enforce. There are so many multi-functional gadgets out there, it makes it hard to regulate which functions can be used and which are too distracting and risky. You’re not allowed to use the phone part of your phone, but you’re allowed to use the mp3 player? You get the point.
Early research conducted by Linda Ng Boyle, an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Washington, is showing that drivers can now benefit from an in-car coach when it comes to distracted driving. She recently published a study focusing on distracted driving in young drivers. To begin, Boyle classified driver participants according to their risk level, low, medium, and high, based on their potential to get distracted while behind the wheel. While performing tasks in a driving simulator, the drivers’ gaze was monitored with an eye tracker and the simulation equipped with an electronic driving coach.
Her studies showed that with a little bit of coaching, drivers categorized at high-risk became safer, doubling their time before a virtual crash. Of course, if you only make it 10 seconds driving before you crash and double your time to 20 seconds, that’s not very assuring for other folks on the road.
Boyle says, however, that according to the research, many high-risk drivers on the road aren’t necessarily the thrill seeking type; they just don’t understand the risks involved. “By providing continual feedback,” she says, “drivers may be more likely to learn from their mistakes and put their eyes back on the road.”
Boyle’s research, which was conducted while she was still at the University of Iowa, was recently published in an issue of the Journal of Transportation Engineering. Her team studied a sample of 53 drivers aged 18 to 21, asking them to operate a driving simulator and drive down a two-lane stretch of highway with oncoming traffic. Each participant was asked to perform multiple tasks displayed on a screen near the steering wheel, and an eye tracker recorded the drivers’ gaze and attention.
After initial tests with the simulator, the driving coach was enabled and each time a driver’s eye’s left the road for longer than a set amount of time the system displayed a message on the task screen that told them to return their eyes to the road. Drivers were then given feedback on what they did correctly and what errors they made.
Distracted drivers benefit from in-car driving coach
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