“Driver fatigue and falling asleep while driving is a deadly problem. Our goal is to understand these incidents better”

“We want to stop a momentary lapse from becoming a tragedy,” says Jeff Greenberg, Ford’s safety research technical specialist and manager of the company’s VIRTTEX (VIRtual Test Track EXperiment) laboratory in Dearborn, Michigan. A United States-based team has been researching driver drowsiness and accident avoidance using the VIRRTEX driving simulator.

Mr Greenberg says: “Driver fatigue and falling asleep while driving is a deadly problem. Our goal is to understand these incidents better and investigate whether new technologies could be developed to detect this situation and help prevent it from happening. “These are often not minor accidents when they occur. When someone falls asleep at the wheel, the vehicle often leaves the lane and the roadway – followed by a major crash or rollover.”

The research has seen more than 30 men and women with ages ranging from 21-70 act as “test drivers”. They stayed up all night before their test date and consumed no caffeine after 6pm the preceding evening. A sensor placed on a watchstrap was worn the day before the test to verify that volunteers didn’t sleep.

VIRTTEX driving simulator

Once in the VIRTTEX chamber, the volunteers drove for up to three hours on a simulated darkened country road. An in-car camera monitored the driver’s face for eye movement. A computer then calculated the percentage of eye closed versus eye open – to sense if the driver was falling asleep. Mr Greenberg says: “The differences between how drivers fell asleep at the wheel were noticeable. Some began to nod their head while others were completely still. They then lapse into ‘micro sleep’ lasting a matter of seconds, but potentially deadly at 70 mph.”

He adds: “If a motorist is sleep-deprived the only remedies are to get some sleep or to take a legal stimulant such as a caffeine-based energy drink. Anything else drivers do in cars to try and keep themselves awake such as opening windows or singing is very, very short term in its impact and the same is likely to be true if we install a warning system in a car.” Therefore, the Ford experts hope the research will enable them to develop technology that senses if the driver is tired by the way the car is being driven and the position of the vehicle on the road.

Effectively, technology would make the car “intelligent”, sense the driver was drowsy and hopefully, says Mr Greenberg, drivers will take a break. One answer to the sleep problem could be the installation of a warning sound – researchers call it an “audio icon” – which would see a familiar sound such as the noise of tyres running over a rumble strip engineered into the vehicle to “jolt” the driver.

Another alternative being discussed would see technology installed that would “nudge” the vehicle back on to the road. Mr Greenberg says: “The system would fall short of auto-pilot, but would provide some ability to ‘push’ the car back on to the road.”

Such technology would operate in a similar way to driving instructors taking the wheel and “pulling the car back on line” when an “L” driver is in control, according to Mr Greenberg. However, he adds: “If we can technically achieve that we must find out whether it is acceptable to drivers.”

In terms of vehicle safety, manufacturers look at three stages: the pre-crash regime, the crash regime and the post-crash regime.

Over the past 30 years, billions of pounds and millions of man-hours have gone into measures designed to protect drivers and their passengers in the event of an accident – seatbelts, airbags, vehicle structure and rescueability. However, while more and more vehicles have accident avoidance features fitted as standard, such as Electronic Stability Programme (ESP), Electronic Brakeforce Distribution (EBFD) and Emergency Brake Assist (EBA), Mr Greenberg says: “There is still a need to drive down injuries caused by crashes so we are looking at the pre-crash regime.

“There is an increasing awareness of how serious the problem of tired driving is becoming”

“We believe there is enormous potential, but we have to understand the psychology of people; what is acceptable; and how people process information. It is people that we are studying and not cars.” In Britain, the most frequently-quoted example of a sleep-deprived tragedy was at Selby in 2001. It resulted in Land Rover driver Gary Hart being jailed for five years after his vehicle left the M62 and ploughed on to a railway line, where it was hit by train resulting in the deaths of 10 people.

Mr Greenberg says: “There is an increasing awareness of how serious the problem of tired driving is becoming as peoples’ schedules are becoming crammed and time is tight. We are thinking and working towards solutions, but it is up to customers to say whether they value the technology and can they use it.”

Research findings will be utilised by all brands in the Ford Motor Company family, which includes Volvo, a manufacturer synonymous with safety, as well as Ford, Land Rover, Jaguar, Mazda and Aston Martin. The technology is likely to debut in Volvo vehicles.