Abstract
Driver distraction and drowsiness remain significant contributors to death and serious injury on our roads and are long standing issues in road safety strategies around the world. With developments in automotive technology, including driver monitoring, there are now more options available for automotive manufactures to mitigate risks associated with driver state. Such developments in Occupant Status Monitoring (OSM) are being incorporated into the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) Safety Assist protocols. The requirements for OSM technologies are discussed along two dimensions: detection difficulty and behavioral complexity. More capable solutions will be able to provide higher levels of system availability, being the proportion of time a system could provide protection to the driver, and will be able to capture a greater proportion of complex real-word driver behavior. The testing approach could initially propose testing using both a dossier of evidence provided by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) alongside selected use of track testing. More capable systems will not rely only on warning strategies but will also include intervention strategies when a driver is not attentive. The roadmap for future OSM protocol development could consider a range of known and emerging safety risks including driving while intoxicated by alcohol or drugs, cognitive distraction, and the driver engagement requirements for supervision and take-over performance with assisted and automated driving features.
Highlights
Recent data from Europe and Australia confirm that approximately 25% of crashes involve drowsiness, and that distraction and inattention are factors in 29–48% of fatal and serious injury crashes (Sundfør et al, 2019; Fitzharris et al, 2020; European Commission, 2021a)
In 2019 in the United States nearly 4,000 fatalities (11% of the total) and over 400,000 injuries were attributed to distraction or drowsiness (NHTSA, 2020, 2021)
Drivers often engage in visual time sharing, where attention is split between driving and a secondary task, often up to 20–30 s (Lenné et al, 2020)
Summary
Each year the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests all new high volume selling car models (>90% of cars sold have a rating) to provide consumer information regarding the overall safety of these cars. Particular aspects of driver appearance can challenge performance that include eye shape and skin texture along with the driver seating position (typically indicated by driver height) Increased capability on this dimension is evident by high levels of detection accuracy with a wider range of “noise factors” that include sunglasses, hats, and masks for example. Drivers often engage in visual time sharing, where attention is split between driving and a secondary task, often up to 20–30 s (Lenné et al, 2020) This concept is recognized in several published distraction models (Seppelt et al, 2017; Kircher et al, 2020), and is important to capture to maximize safety outcomes. This matrix provides the basis of the range of noise variables and behaviors that are covered in the proposed protocol
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