In this paper, the authors present a simple, non-intrusive device to aid the street driver in allocating attention to the traffic scene behind the car. The rear speed display (electronic alphanumeric), which shows digits in reverse, is placed at the backlight. The driver has visual access via the rearview mirror. In Section One, a theory of driving behaviour, "event-driven calibration", is proposed, the driver is prompted to verify intuitive sense of actual speed against the speedometer at the cue of a speed limit sign. This cognitive process to enhance crash avoidance by placing a speed display at the backlight is exploited. Data about the rear traffic scene will be processed by the driver, simultaneously, with the speed data. Section Two discusses hardware. In Section Three, the testing and evaluation of the rear speed display is reported on. For the covering abstract see ITRD E116488.
Abstract