Good vibrations to aid car drivers

Drivers will soon be able to feel their way through traffic with the help of a vibrating car that sends warnings about impending danger by stimulating the sense of touch.

Scientists at Oxford University are working with a Japanese car manufacturer to design vehicles with tactile warning alarms built in to the seat, seatbelt, steering wheel and even foot pedals.

The aim is to send vibrations to sensitive parts of a driver's body so that they can be warned of possible danger within a fraction of a second of it being detected by the car's computer.

Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at Oxford, said that the sense of touch has never before been exploited by car makers and yet touch is a key aspect of human awareness.

"We think that touch is so completely unused at the moment. We need something else other than sound and I think touch is the really exciting thing to work on," Dr Spence said.

"We're only going to present vibrations in an uncomplicated manner to parts of the body already in touch with the car," he said. Denso, a Japanese supplier of car parts, predicted that all new cars will have tactile instrumentation by 2015.

Up to a half of the most common type of traffic accident - when one car runs into the back of another - are the result of a lack of concentration and yet the technology exists to warn drivers of potential danger, such as getting too close to the car in front, he told the Science Festival.

Studies suggest that improving a person's reaction time by as little as a tenth of a second could make the difference between life and death. Up to 15 per cent of some accidents might be prevented by in-car alarms, Dr Spence said.

The best way of attracting a driver's attention is a loud alarm but this can be too distracting in heavy traffic and too annoying when it is linked with false alarms, he said.

"We can use attention-grabbing signals in cars but they are very irritating for the driver. The more attention-grabbing a signal is, the more irritating it is for the driver," Dr Spence said.

"What car makers want is a warning signal that gets to the driver as quickly as possible telling them to look up now, do this or do that because you are about to crash," he added.

The Oxford group are developing ways of sending the sort of vibrations used in mobile phones to car seats, steering wheels or foot pedals.

"Vibrations are cheap, they are very personal and they are pleasant compared to sounds. They automatically grab your attention, and they are implicitly directional. If you feel something from your belly you feel it is out there in front, if you feel it in your back you know you should look behind," Dr Spence explained.

"We're very keen that the vibration will only be provided by a part of the car that is already in contact with the driver, such as the seat bottom, the back and sides of the seat, the seatbelt.

"We're also thinking about a vibrating steering wheel to give directional cues and others are looking at a vibrating foot pedal to get you suddenly to move your foot off the pedal," he told the conference.

- INDEPENDENT