Abstract
This paper reports a proving ground experiment, where the use of an active steering wheel was tested in two critical driving situations which occurred as rare events during the course: curve driving and dangerous overtaking manoeuvre. In the curve driving situation a continuous steering support was compared with a brief, discrete steering wheel warning. To break up a critical overtaking manoeuvre a brief vibrating warning cue via the active steering wheel was compared with a brief, acoustic warning cue. The results are dicussed in the context of the control activities (open-loop and closed-loop control) of the driving task, and reveal the timing of the different support strategies as a critical variable during manual control.