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Our
research was a real world experimentation that
began in 1985. While we set up to
computerize the car, the car and reality showed
us many of the dangers associated with driving
while inputting data into the computer or
dialing a number as simple as dialing 911.
Although we got into the field with an
acknowledgment of the danger of looking away and
reaching to handle controls while, we learned
more about how drivers interact with the vehicle
and technology and improved our conclusions to
accommodate new phenomenon and thus add new
solutions.
Our
research is based purely on observing drivers
doing what they do in the real world while
driving their cars, sipping their coffee, making a call,
grooming, etc.. This is a luxury that our
colleagues in the industry did not have.
Unlike our colleagues, we did not have a start
and stop date, funding or a theory to prove.
We used these technologies everyday and we
observed others around us doing the same.
Ours was a long term observation and is more
like a social study or a medical study that
follow people over years.
The
interactions of drivers in the driving
experience are defined as physical
interaction and mental (cognitive)
interaction. We observed that physical
interactions in the car was nearly identical
among all drivers because we are basically built
the same and our construction allow us only
certain functionalities. Cognitive
experience on the other hand was very subtle and
not possible to determine, (how can anyone
tell what a person is looking at or thinking
about?), unless accompanied by an overt
physical activity. Such
overt physical activities included looking away,
having a blank stair or not responding to a
question or a comment by others in the car.
Surprisingly, the driver under such condition still was able to
maneuver in the traffic, stop safely and follow
directions.
Human Factor researchers, even those that say
that distraction is all mental, acknowledge that
simulators are not a truly comparable to driving
in the real world.
Beside the fact that test subjects are asked to
perform tasks that are alien to them (No matter
how simple they are) are really not within their
comfort zone and thus they have to exert more
thought to what is being asked of them.
Another situation faced in the simulator is the
drivers of the simulated vehicles do not respond
to the test subject mistakes like other drivers
do in the real world so crashes scenarios are
inevitable.
In
a repot to SAAB IVSS research, Dr. Ktja Kircher,
(VTI Rapport 594A published 2007
www.vti.se/publications), noted the
following in her research about Driver
Distraction - A Review of Literature, noted the
following statement:"In
simulators it is difficult, however, to induce
true distraction due to short duration of the
experiment and the artificial setting. A
prolonged field study under naturalistic
conditions could provide new insights and
validation of simulator studies"
Similar conclusion from Virginia Tech
Transportation Institute showed that previous
simulator data did not coincide with a real
world driving experience and showed that the
cause of accidents was drivers looking away from
the road or leaving the steering wheel are the
causes of accidents in addition to drowsy
driving, bad weather etc.
(Report
No. DOT HS 810 594 The Impact of Driver
Inattention on Near-Crash/Crash Risk: An
Analysis Using the 100-Car Naturalistic Driving
Study Data Klauer, S.G., Dingus, T. A., Neale,
V. L., Sudweeks, J.D., and Ramsey, D.J.)
In
conclusion, falling back on what we learned in
the areas of Quality Deployment, Customer
Satisfaction, Customer Concerns Resolution and
Industrial safety, we morphed the findings from
our road observations to solutions that we
learned throughout our experiences in the
previously noted industries. These
solutions followed the tried and true methods of
these disciplines: Fool Proofing,
Use Non-conformity to update your knowledge
and document History to guide in newer
problems and to prevent the recurrence of
a non conformity.
For
Fool Proofing meant that an operation or a
process should follow a specific process over
and over again to assure consistency and avoid
unexpected consequences. It may also
specify positions and environment of a process,
posture and actions of an operator.
The
conclusions were really simple:
-
Look at what you are doing
-
Use both hands and the right tools
-
Do not change the order of the operation
from one vehicle to another
-
Do not disrupt operation, wait until it
is done to change process
-
Get feed back from the operator about
the process.
Our
solution does just that. Pure QA & Process
Engineering with physical fool proofing for the
posture and operation of the driver.
The
solution was as simple:
-
Do not require the driver to look away from road
-
Give driver control to anything in the
car she or he brings to the car with Hands
On The Wheel
-
Provide a familiar and predictable way
to use a system (no need to think
through every step). As a matter
of fact, the system will do the thinking
and prioritization for the driver so
there's no need to step through multiple
options.
-
Do not interrupt the driver during risky
maneuver
-
Allow each individual driver to provide
input to how he wants the system to act
under specific conditions.
Many
companies have promoted Hands Free as the
correct solution to Driver Distraction. To
allow control of the cell phone and other
devices, the promoted Speech Recognition as the
mean to control those devices without actually
handling them, thus keeping the driver looking
at the road and his hands on the wheel.
But, unfortunately, that is not an effective
solution and will actually lead to Frustration
AND Distraction. Why?
In
an report by Telematic Update
(Telematicsupdate.com), Mark Fitzgerald, senior
automotive analyst at market research firm
Strategy Analytics, thinks voice is the ideal
solution for a hands-free interface,
but is not sure its current capability is
sufficient:
“It’s better every year, but I don’t think it’s
a perfect HMI solution just yet.” Though voice
recognition has been under development for more
than 20 years, Myles H. Kitchen, automotive
electronics consultant/analyst at M.H. Kitchen &
Associates said: even today’s
best systems are about 70% accurate
at best. .
“The
Ford Sync system is very popular and has gotten
lots of good press,”
he says,
“but I've seen user tests that have accuracy
rates as low as 11%.”
Dr.
Paul Green, from University of Michigan, in his
study (Driver Distraction, Telematics Design,
and Workload Managers: Safety Issues and
Solutions - SAE Paper Number 2004-21-0022)
suggest that developing a work load manger is
the solution to Driver Distraction as
experienced by drivers while using electronics.
A device that is continually monitoring the
vehicle and the driver will help drivers manage
the distraction so drivers can focus on the
drive.
In
summary, our solution conform to the three issued
raised by scientist and industry experts after
our conclusion:
-
It was not developed in simulators or in
theory. It is the result of a decade
of driving, using PCS and Telephone while
driving. We worked out a solution
based on real life conditions.
-
It does not use
unreliable technology, Speech Recognition,
and uses single sensor on each side of the
steering wheel, so it is reliable and less
confusing then what we have on the steering
today. (Hands On Wheel Interface -
iQ-Interface)
-
Our solution
incorporates an intelligent assistant (Work
Load Manager) iQ-Gateway that managers the
driving experience to eliminate the driver
distraction causes
This
is the compilation of an effort that started in
1985 and wrapped up in 2001 after we filed our
patent. in 2002 we finished our full blown
on vehicle implementation and soon afterward, we
developed a demonstrator to reduce driving
scenario to a brief case. We have a patent
granted in the U.S. and more then a dozen
subject pending in the U.S., EU and Japanese
patent offices.
Please fell free to contact us if
you have a question. Further conclusions
are available on
http://actplace.net.
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