Emerging Issues

Vehicular strategies that hold promise for reducing crashes among drivers who are drowsy include collision avoidance technologies such as lane departure warning, crash-imminent braking, and forward collision warning, and vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications technologies (IIHS, 2012; IIHS, 2014). Such technologies, once available only in luxury brands, are now offered in many new vehicles.

Additionally, in-vehicle technologies are available and being further developed to detect driver drowsiness by monitoring driver performance and then warning drivers (Brown et al., 2014; May & Baldwin, 2009; Papadelis et al., 2007; Sahayadhas et al., 2012). When first introduced, driver State monitoring systems (DSMs) were activated only when a certain ADAS was activated. DSMs can now be used independently of ADAS. Manufacturers of such systems use a variety of techniques to monitor the driver such as pressure on the steering wheel and number of lane departures. More sophisticated systems monitor eye blinks. Although SHSOs are limited in their ability to implement this technology, it is promising in that it provides a potential measure of the behavioral effectiveness of programmatic-based strategies to reduce drowsy driving.