Virtual Reality Used to Gauge Driver Distractions

O A K   R I D G E, Tenn., May 3, 2001 -- Researchers are for the first time using a virtual reality simulator to test how drivers handle the distractions of new car options including navigational aids, collision warning devices, Internet connections and their ever-present cell phones.

With all this going on, the simulator records a driver's performance — speed, braking and the ability to stay in one lane. Early tests — the first to measure driver distraction — indicate these growing demands on a driver's attention clearly contribute to crashes.

"The big danger, in my opinion, is distracting the driver from the main task of controlling the vehicle and avoiding accidents," says Phil Spelt, the senior research scientist who is conducting the project at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of a larger Transportation Department study.

There is, it seems, such a thing as too much information while in the driver's seat. "There certainly is the potential for that as both the vehicle manufacturers and individual car owners add more and more devices inside the car," says Spelt.

"It seemed like a good bit of things were coming at me at once," says Jenny Manneschmidt, after taking a virtual drive that ended with a virtual crash. "I was having trouble processing what I was supposed to do."

Automakers Making Things Simpler

Real-life drivers appear to have the same trouble. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says distracted driving causes one-quarter of the nation's 6.3 million annual automobile accidents. As a result, automakers are now working on ways to manage all the information a driver has to juggle.

General Motor's OnStar division even markets Virtual Advisor, its one-touch, hands-free communications system, as a safety feature. By pressing a single button and talking into the dashboard, drivers can make telephone calls, hear e-mail and get Internet access to news, stock quotes and sports scores.

The one-touch system is also available on Lexus, Acura, Audi and Volkswagen models.

BMW is going a step further. Early next year, the automaker's 7 Series line will offer iDrive, a single knob to control everything — climate control, radio and CD player, e-mail and even the driver's own cell phone, which can be plugged into the system. The clutter of controls and dials on the dashboard is reduced to a single knob on a console between the front seats, roughly where a gear shift is in a manual transmission car, and a display screen, roughly at eye level on top of the dashboard.

"If we're going to expand all these things, we need to simplify the way in which we can use them: says Rob Mitchell, spokesman for BMW of North America.

All the systems are integrated systems so they do not interfere with each other — and the driver's attention. "The car recognizes, for example, if a telephone call comes in, that it should mute the audio system or take you away from the navigation system," Mitchell says.

Mitchell admits, though, that in the beginning using this single control could be distracting in itself, and drivers will have to get used to it. "They're not going to be able to just jump in there and drive away and find everything where they are accustomed to," he says.

He says the goal, though, is to keep all these devices from diverting the driver's focus from the road ahead.