Teen drivers have a higher fatality risk than any other drivers on the road. Despite teenagers making up only 4.6% of all licensed drivers, they are involved in 13% of all fatal crashes. Approximately six thousand teenagers are killed in motor vehicle crashes every year, and this number has remained constant for the over a decade; making automobile crashes the leading cause of death among this age group. As a result, new approaches to mitigate teen fatalities must be investigated. This paper focuses on potential of in-vehicle technology to monitor and correct unsafe teen driver behavior. In order to determine what types of technologies would be most beneficial, common factors that play a role in teen driver fatalities are first identified. We then describe the mechanisms that lead to these kinds of behavior, and methods in which each behavior could be corrected are described – by means of forcing, feedback, or reporting functions. Examples of in-vehicle technologies are then given for each function. Finally, a recommendation is made for a system that uses a combination of the triad of functions to specifically address the common factors that lead to teen driver fatalities. (Author/publisher)
Abstract