Equipment Design Features (Impacts on Safety)

Papers, polls, Q&A items, and comments on this page are oriented to topics and issues associated with the impact of equipment design features on driving safety. Feel free to post comments on issues outlined below, or in response to papers, polls, and/or questions submitted to our expert panel. The emphasis is meant to be on the design features of the technological devices themselves, but comments on system-level safety (e.g., integration of devices, use of crash warnings) are welcome. A moderator has been assigned to periodically synthesize comments, keep discussions focused and moving, emphasize key points, and offer additional insights into related issues.

DISCUSSION ISSUES/TOPICS

Effective/Ineffective Designs & Countermeasures

What technologies can be employed to develop less distracting devices (e.g., voice recognition, hands free operation)?
To what extent does voice interaction (speech recognition, artificial speech) provide benefits over visual presentation? Under what conditions is voice communication distracting?
Is there less driver distraction with the use of Head Up Displays (HUDs) than with traditional displays? Can everyone use HUDs effectively?
How should information be structured, formatted, and searched? How much information is too much for drivers to handle?
What designs and features (design soluations) have worked well in this or similar applications? What problems have been observed?
What effective countermeasures can be used to combat distraction?

Research Needs

What are the important unanswered questions regarding the design of in-vehicle technologies? Is research best directed at defining good design or developing tools to evaluate individual designs?

Content Available In Each Topic Area

  Paper
  Comment
  Ask the Expert
  Poll

Effective/Ineffective Designs & Countermeasures
	The Impact of Internal Distraction on Driver Visual Behavior 5/17/00 2:30:52 PM Divided Attention Ability of Young and Older Drivers 5/30/00 1:12:17 PM Speech-based Interaction with In-vehicle Computers: The Effect of Speech-based E-mail on Drivers’ Attention to the Roadway 5/31/00 11:52:26 AM Integration of Driver In-Vehicle ITS Information 5/31/00 11:53:14 AM E-Distraction: The Challenges for Safe and Usable Internet Services in Vehicles 5/31/00 12:04:41 PM Can Collision Warning Systems Mitigate Distraction Due to In-Vehicle Devices? 5/31/00 1:12:43 PM In-Vehicle Communication and Driving: An Attempt to Overcome their Interference 6/1/00 11:55:10 AM If purchasing an in-vehicle device, how much of an influence does the design and ease of use of devices have on your selection? Can auditory systems (devices with the capability to interpret voice commands, or communicate using speech messages) address the safety concerns associated with operating in-vehicle technologies? Do you believe hands-free technology is sufficient to address safety concerns related to cell phone use while driving? Is it possible to design electronic maps that can be safely used while driving? Is it possible to design wireless Internet devices (e.g., e-mail systems) that can be safely used while driving? Integration of Driver in vehicle ITS 7/6/00 2:13:53 PM In your opinion, what is the maximum number of recommended information displays a HUD should feature? 7/14/00 8:52:05 AM Passenger Air Bag technology saves lives, BUT... 7/14/00 6:11:10 PM Radio designs are needlessly dangerous 7/18/00 3:04:26 PM Radio designs are needlessly dangerous, II 7/18/00 6:32:12 PM Possible solution 7/18/00 6:44:54 PM disable devices while car is in motion 7/19/00 11:19:00 AM low cost "black-box" equipment for motor vehicles 7/19/00 11:50:17 AM In your opinion, what is the maximum number of recommended information displays a HUD should feature? Can you specify related references? 7/19/00 4:11:36 PM What role can automation play in reducing the driver distraction problem? What automated or assistance systems can we expect to see in the future? 7/20/00 7:47:20 AM Steven Shladover The relationship between driver distraction and automation is complicated and needs to be considered in several parts, because the effects are likely to be quite different: automation systems that can augment the driver's driving activities by providing additional "eyes and ears"; automation systems that can partially substitute for the driver's driving activities; automation systems that can completely replace the driver's driving activities. The first category of automation systems represent collision or safety warning systems, using sensors to detect hazardous driving conditions and then processing the sensor outputs to determine when the driver needs to be warned. The warnings could be auditory (tones, buzzers, synthesized speech), haptic (vibration or torque applied to steering wheel, vibration or pressure to gas pedal or seat cushion), kinesthetic (application of brake pulse) or visual (lights on instrument panel, in mirrors or head-up display). The auditory, haptic and kinesthetic warnings could be very effective at catching the attention of a distracted driver IF they are well designed to elicit the "correct" emergency response from the driver. The visual warnings are less likely to help, since the distracted driver is not necessarily going to notice them. A variety of these systems have been introduced to the market for commercial trucks and buses in the U.S., to help avoid forward collisions, run-off-the-road crashes and side collisions during lane changes. However, the passenger car market has not yet seen any of these (except for short-range warnings to assist in parking, which are not really relevant to the driver distraction issue). A few such systems have recently been introduced in high-end cars in Japan. The second category of systems, providing control assistance to the driver, present a more complicated picture relative to driver distraction. The most prominent of these systems is adaptive cruise control (ACC), which uses a forward ranging sensor such as a radar to measure the distance and closing rate to the leading vehicle and then uses that information to adjust the speed of the equipped vehicle so that it maintains an "appropriate" separation behind the leading vehicle. Another system that has been proposed by some people is a lane keeping assistance system, which would provide an active torque to the steering wheel to tend to keep the vehicle centered in the lane, providing the driver the impression of driving in gentle ruts in the pavement. The ACC systems may be able to improve safety by encouraging drivers to follow at somewhat longer separations from other vehicles than they do today, and they may be able to reduce rear-end crashes caused by inattentive drivers overtaking slower vehicles. However, if drivers become overly reliant on the ACC and do not really understand its limitations (inability to sense stopped vehicles, road debris, and animal intrusions and inability to respond to aggressive cut-ins or abrupt stops of preceding vehicles), it has the potential to exacerbate the driver distraction problem. This could even encourage drivers to engage in more non-driving tasks than they do now while driving, which would be most unfortunate. I am not aware of any definitive data to confirm or refute these hypotheses, which are in urgent need of testing by drivers who do not know that they are being tested for these issues. Primitive ACC systems have been on the passenger car market in Japan for several years, while capable ACC systems were introduced in Europe last year and are likely to be available in the U.S. within the next year on select high-end cars and heavy trucks. The lane keeping assistance systems would pose substantially more serious concerns for driver distraction and are not under serious consideration as products at this time, as far as I can tell. Any attempt to combine lane keeping assistance with ACC has the potential to be disastrous, because it would present the driver with a simulacrum of automated driving, which some drivers would be tempted to abuse by ignoring their driving responsibilities. The third category of automation systems, which completely take over the driving function, raise an additional set of issues. These systems are not subject to distraction themselves, so while they are in use the driver distraction problem per se becomes a moot issue. The driver can turn his/her attention to other issues, or "tune out" completely, without raising safety concerns. However, the important issue then becomes how to re-engage the driver's attention at the end of the automated drive so that s/he can take over driving from the exit of the automated highway facility to his/her final destination. There are also some longer-term challenges associated with the possible decrement of driving skills or driving attentiveness by drivers who do a large fraction of their travel in the automated mode, but still need to do considerable conventional driving. It is important that they not carry over their expectations for performing other activities during the automated drive into their conventional manual driving behavior. The fully automated driving capabilities are likely to become available only to transit bus and commercial truck drivers on specially equipped facilities within the coming decade; passenger car drivers will probably need to wait until the decade after. Confusing radio controls 7/20/00 4:05:31 PM Older vs. Younger 7/24/00 9:47:24 PM E-mail in the car 7/24/00 10:09:21 PM HUD usage 7/26/00 1:46:27 PM HUD usage 7/26/00 1:47:16 PM Radio/CD player designs need standards 7/31/00 2:13:49 AM Integration and solutions causing potential new problems 8/1/00 10:09:55 AM Radio content can be distracting 8/1/00 10:25:10 AM Ergonomic design and visual pollution 8/3/00 2:14:33 PM Ergonomic design and visual pollution (ergonomically improved!) 8/3/00 2:23:18 PM
Research Needs
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