Safer vehicles have yielded less-safe driving. It's time
to shift gears.
On a recent road trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on
Interstate 15, I noticed a seemingly countless array of tire scuff marks
leading from the center median, arcing steeply over to the right-hand side
fog line, and off the road. The sharp angles of these scuff marks were a
clear sign of drivers losing control of their vehicles.
The drivers are so inattentive, perhaps even asleep, that
they drive into the center of the road before they are jolted back to
reality as the vehicle hits the median. Upon regaining consciousness, they
overcorrect their steering, causing the vehicle to spin out of control and
even roll over. Most drivers fail to recognize the immense power of a
speeding vehicle's kinetic energy.
Driver distraction is responsible for 80% of motor-vehicle
accidents, according to a recent study for the National Highway
Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted by the Virginia Tech
Transportation Institute. Drivers have literally been lulled into a false
sense of safety and security by the very sophistication of the modern car.
Newer vehicles drive more and more effortlessly. A similar study of driver
behavior found no reduction of accidents or injuries in cars with airbags
and antilock brakes. The researchers concluded that the safety features
encourage more-aggressive drivinga paradox referred to as the offset
hypothesis.
You build more-effortless vehicles, people will exert less
effortand attentiondriving them. Driver distraction is not so much due to
sensory overload as to complacent driving. We multitask while driving just
like we do at work. It's become commonplace to spot someone on the freeway
chatting on a cell phone, shaving or applying makeup, or even reading.
The problem is that the density of traffic has increased
dramatically at the same time that our comfort level with operating our cars
has increased. Now, even a brief moment of distraction can easily coincide
with a sudden dangerous event, such as another distracted driver swerving to
change lanes.
Another key issue is that our comfort while driving these
easy-to-handle vehicles encourages us to drive faster. We simply don't sense
that we're driving too fast. The average vehicle now weighs as much as 40%
more than those even 10 years ago, and we go faster without realizing that
this combination of greater mass and velocity dramatically increases our
kinetic energy. For example, a family that trades up from a 3,300-pound
Volvo station wagon to a 4,300-pound Ford Explorer, then increases their
cruising speed from 70 to 75 mph, boosts the family car's kinetic energy by
about 50%.
When this vehicle goes out of control, there will be vastly
more energy to dissipate in a crashwhich will translate into more-severe
injuries. It is just that simple.
Distraction-caused traffic accidents are responsible for a
huge cost to society. Vehicle repair is only a small part of these costs.
Rather, it is the pain and suffering caused in the process, not to mention
the medical care, the legal action taken to recover damages, the impacts on
infrastructure, and of course the human costs that need to be addressed.
Even a 1% improvement in driver awareness with a corresponding 1% reduction
in accidents would be a huge step.
Ways to Increase Driver Focus
The first line of attack in motor vehicle safety has always been to improve
vehicle crash-worthiness. Next are electronic driver aids, such as antilock
brakes, radar-activated automated braking systems, automatic seatbelts that
tighten up the shoulder harness to reduce occupant movement at impact, and,
of course, air bags.
These approaches are good in that they lessen the effects of
an impact on the body. These kinds of improvements should be continually
developed in order to reduce both physical and financial damage. But I
believe that these systems will eventually just extend the distraction
syndrome, because people will feel even safer in their vehicles and simply
drive faster, a potentially endless cycle. To avoid the accidents in the first
place, we need technologies to increase driver alertness, not reduce it.
One possibility is to use the radar proximity sensors on the
front corners of the car as well as on the front in order to prevent
left-turn intersection accidents. A warning buzzer could sound when computer
monitoring of steering and trajectory determines that an accident is
imminent, and if the driver fails to respond quickly enough, the brakes
could be automatically applied. While this does not discourage driver
distraction, merely giving us another electronic nanny, it's not a bad
thing. You would want your car to shut down the engine to avoid an engine
failure, and you would want your car to stop in the road if the alternative
is bodily injury.
To reduce driver distraction, we need to increase driver
involvemententice us back to attention to handle all those series of small
adjustments in steering and acceleration to accommodate changing road
conditions.
Steering wheels and gas pedals are both increasingly
computer interfaced, so if the driver fails to perform the usual minor
steering adjustments, the computer should recognize the lapse as
distraction. The computer would then emit some small but noticeable wake-up
call to the driver, such as a buzz, a flash of light, or even joy-buzzer
type shock. The warning signals would be vivid but not startling, designed
to increase in intensity to draw the driver's focus back to the needed
adjustment.
At some point, if the driver still fails to respond
appropriately, the vehicle would automatically activate emergency flashers
to warn other drivers that this vehicle may be out of control. If an
impending accident is recognized by the computer, the brakes could be
applied at the appropriate time.
These warning and control technologies bring us closer to
the ideal of avoiding accidents, but we need to go a step further and avoid
the inattentiveness that creates the need for warning signals in the first
place. How about making driving interesting?
Instead of making drivers feel as if they are curled up on
the old couch, getting sleepier by the minute, cars could be engineered to
make them feel that they're actually driving. Engineers could design
feedback stimulation into the steering wheel to give you the feeling of
driving a sporty roadster, for example, with all the excitement and
"aliveness" programmed into your hands. You could still have the power
steering you need, but the "road feel" in the wheel would be more
exhilarating, perhaps even like piloting a jet.
Keeping drivers interested and attentive means spending more
engineering time on the intangible aspects of vehicle design, such as the
ergonomics of the information and control panels on the vehicle dashboard or
steering wheel. The easier and more transparent the controls are, the
better, as it allows the driver to perform tasks quickly and with less
attention drawn away from road conditions.
Simply put, vehicle controls need to be intuitive and
accessible by peripheral vision. Anything that distracts drivers even for a
momentwhether to turn up the heat or check the GPS map for the next service
stationbecomes an opportunity for an accident. If changing the radio
channel takes more than the push of a single button, it's too much. It's
time for engineers to put driving back in the hands of drivers.
About the Author
Merkel Weiss is an automotive engineer who taught
car design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, for
nearly 25 years. E-mail MerkelWeiss@aol.com.
