According to a AAA study from 2014, more than one third of drivers have fessed up to falling asleep at the wheel at some point in their driving life.
An article on the foundation’s website discusses the study, and indicates that “drowsy drivers are involved in an estimated 21% of fatal crashes”.
But despite these numbers, there has still been a lot of debate surrounding whether driving tired is the same as driving impaired.
The MythBusters even did a segment on this, in which they made hosts Tory and Kari drive a course after having a few drinks, and subsequently after staying up all night.
“Although both situations – downing a couple of shots and staying up all night – clearly impaired Tory and Kari’s driving skills, causing them to make mistakes and veer out of their lanes, the lack of sleep had more dangerous effects. Compared with cruising around while tipsy, sleep deprivation caused Tory to drive 10 times worse; sleepy Kari’s driving was three times more erratic,” says a write-up on the show’s website.
Concern over the effects of drowsy driving is a big factor contributing to growth in the driver state monitoring system (DSMS) market, which is expected to more than double by 2019, and grow at a CAGR of 22.86%.
A DSMS is an in-vehicle tool adopted to analyze factors like inactiveness, drowsiness and fatigue in a driver.
They work via a camera that analyzes the driver’s face in real time and estimates the drivers state based on head position, eyelid distance, gaze direction, and yawning. If any discrepancies are found, an immediate alarm signal will activate, hopefully preventing an accident.
DSMS is Effective but Costly
Studies done on DSMS indicate that accidents can be reduced by 10%-20% by adopting these systems.
Unfortunately, cost is a major barrier for most consumers. DSMS rely on technology like infrared cameras sensors, and complex image algorithms, which makes the systems expensive, limiting them to the luxury vehicle segment.
However, this leaves a huge untapped market in the passenger car, heavy commercial vehicle and light commercial vehicle segments.
As government safety regulations on road safety grow, many players are researching and coming up with new systems by using cheaper yet efficient parts and small chipsets, and simplifying algorithms to reduce cost.
For instance, researchers at Washington State University (WSU) have developed a simplified algorithm and developed a system that will monitor driver state by steering wheel angle using sensors and small chipsets to process the data.
Hans Van Dongen, the lead research on the project believes that by simplified system offers a more affordable alternative to the current systems available on the market.
“Video-based systems that use cameras to detect when a car is drifting out of its lane are cumbersome and expensive,” said Van Dongen in a 2014 press release on the WSU site.
“Our invention provides an inexpensive and user-friendly technology that overcomes these limitations and can help catch fatigue earlier, well before accidents are likely to happen.”
