- Email: [email protected]
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Notes
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Notes NHTSA Develops World’s Most Powerful Research Driving Simulator Commentary: Driver Performance and the Basic Science Jeffrey W Runge, MD Department of Emergency Medicine
NHTSA Develops World’s Most Powerful Research Driving Simulator [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: NHTSA develops world’s most powerful research driving simulator. Ann Emerg Med March 1999;33:368-369.]
Carolinas Medical Center Charlotte, NC Section Editors Joan S Harris National Highway Traffic Safety Administration B Tilman Jolly, MD Department of Emergency Medicine George Washington University Washington DC Jeffrey W Runge, MD Department of Emergency Medicine Carolinas Medical Center Charlotte, NC Knox H Todd, MD, MPH Rollins School of Public Health Emory University Atlanta, GA Reprints not available from the editors. 47/1/96451
3 6 8
In the spring of 2000, the most technically sophisticated and powerful research driving simulator ever developed will be put into operation in the United States. Known as the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS), this $50 million research tool from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will define a new standard in high-fidelity driving simulation and human factors research capability. It will enable research engineers, scientists, physicians, pharmacologists, and others to investigate the complex interaction between the driver, vehicle, and roadway environment. This work will be conducted under situations that would most certainly result in severe injury or death to drivers in the real world, but with NADS that research can be conducted in the safety of the laboratory. The development of the NADS is in direct response to crash causation research that has shown that up to 80% of all motor vehicle crashes involve human factors issues. The NADS is a highly integrated real-time system that combines high-performance vehicle dynamic driving simulations with large-scale motion and high-fidelity visual and audio cues. These are presented to the subject driver, who is seated in an actual production automobile or truck cab (Figure). The test vehicle is placed within the Simulator.
The NADS uses cutting-edge technology for large-scale motion, high-resolution computer graphics, digital audio, high-speed fiberoptic communications and control, all driven by high-speed parallel-processing super computers. The simulator is being developed by the TRW Systems Integration Group of Redondo Beach, California, under contract to NHTSA. Construction is now under way at the University of Iowa Oakdale Research Park in a facility specifically designed for conducting advanced highway safety research. NHTSA has designed NADS so that researchers can create a driving research environment that is as close as possible to a real-world driving environment to ensure the validity of results without placing driving subjects at risk. The simulator will allow drivers to experience a complete range of actual driving maneuvers that can be programmed to vary from the most benign, normal driving, all the way to loss of vehicle control and incipient crash. Driving environments of all kinds can be instantly created to meet particular research objectives. Examples of these driving environments include lighting and weather conditions, pavement friction, traffic density, traffic control devices, highway and interchange designs, sudden intruding vehicles and/or pedestrians, and so on. The simulator will allow research that involves high workload levels or drivers who are medically, physically, or cognitively impaired because of alcohol, drugs, age, inexperience, or a variety of other conditions. NADS offers a capacity for experimental design conditions that mandate high levels of control or repeatability. Because of the unparalleled capabilities and fidelity of NADS, this will become the world’s best research tool to
ANNALS OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE
33:3 MARCH 1999
NHTSA NOTES
address these real-world problems while meeting stringent research requirements. There are a growing number of problems as we move into the new millennium for which NADS will provide the best means to obtain adequate resolution. Increasingly drivers will be challenged with new, advanced in-vehicle technologies that include, for example, complex communications, navigation or crash avoidance warning systems, roadway information systems, as well as access to E-mail and the Internet. Researchers have expressed concerns that these systems and functions have the potential to overload the driver, so NHTSA has embarked on a research program to address these concerns. Because NADS allows researchers to implement these technologies and functions under simulated realworld conditions that do not place a driver at risk, it will be possible to develop safe vehicle equipment designs and system functions. Designs developed under these conditions can then be translated to production vehicles with the knowledge that they have been pretested and proven safe and effective. As the population of drivers ages, there will be greater challenges to maintain both their mobility and safety, and in that arena NADS creates an ideal environment to study older driver capability. A variety of driver functions associated with an aging popula-
tion can be studied. In addition, for drivers of all ages, NADS will allow study of the implications of medical, physical, and pharmacologic impairments, and can provide an environment to foster the development and validation of driver ability screening tools. A number of driver impairment questions have been raised in recent years with regard to alcohol and drugs (illicit, prescription, and over-the-counter). The simulator environment allows safe study of the effect of these substances on driver function. Congress and others recently have focused attention on drowsy driver crashes and the development of in-vehicle warning devices designed to alert the sleepy driver. Drowsy driving has been of particular concern with regard to commercial drivers. These are all examples of research populations and driver functioning problems for which the potential uses for the NADS facility are clear. When construction is complete, NADS will provide an unmatched capability to obtain answers to critical human factors research questions without placing the subject driver in a risky situation—in essence, it will be the research tool of choice. For more information on NADS, please check the Web site at http://nhtsa.dot.gov/people/perform/nads/, or contact Dr H Keith Brewer at [email protected].
Faxed requests for a NADS information packet can also be made to 202-366-7236.
Commentary: Driver Performance and the Basic Sciences [Runge JW: Driver performance and the basic sciences [commentary]. Ann Emerg Med March 1999;33:369-370.] Motor vehicle crash injury is the plague of the 20th century, and it continues to be the scourge of our youth. Like other diseases, crash injury occurs because of an interaction between the agent of the disease, kinetic energy, a host, and the environment. It is difficult to imagine another disease entity that kills more than 40,000 people per year that, to this point, has had less basic research applied to defining the susceptibility characteristics of its host. Whether the disease is infectious, or heart attack, stroke, or cancer, understanding illnesses and cures begins with a foundation in basic science research. Only in the past 3 decades has injury truly been recognized as a disease with a definable epidemiology, making analysis and prevention a possibility. Although good basic research exists with regard to the interaction of the host with vectors of disease, such as motor
Figure.
National Advanced Driving Simulator.
MARCH 1999
33:3
ANNALS OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE
3 6 9
NHTSA NOTES
vehicles, few basic science studies have been accomplished in the elusive realm of driver performance and behavior. The NHTSA, in cooperation with TRW Corporation, has developed a very important basic science tool for the study of injury. The NADS is the injury researcher’s electron microscope into driver behavior. Built with the most modern engineering techniques and computer design, the extremely complex problem of human error in crash injury can be dissected and analyzed. Doubtless there are many uses for this technology already on the minds of crash researchers. The simulator will not be strictly the domain of established NHTSA engineers, however, but rather will be available to the research community at large for study of traffic injury. Emergency physicians and other injury specialists are invited to ponder those seemingly insolvable clinical problems of driver performance, and to collaborate with NHTSA and its engineers to find answers to those difficult questions. As I write this commentary, I arrived back home from attending a meeting of the North Carolina Governors Task Force on Driving While Impaired. Policymakers look to physicians and the scientific community for credible evidence on which to base public policy and legislation. A presentation by a member of the task force, a respected legislator, advocated further reductions in the legal limit for blood alcohol to .05 from our current .08. A study by a renowned alcohol researcher was cited, a retrospective analysis using the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) to compare proportions of crashes involving drunk drivers in 1 state over a 12-year period. The fact that public policy is at stake makes incomplete data reporting an alarming issue. However, this is typical of studies on which most driving laws are based. Yet another presentation was by a police officer who spoke of the merits of prosecuting drivers who exhibit certain signs and symptoms of drug impairment, irrespective of other toxicologic evidence. These proposals were based on interpretations of data reports with many missing cells. So what is to blame, the interpreter, or the lack of good data? It is apparent that much of the difficulty in developing public policy about drivers’ culpability in motor vehicle crashes relates to the lack of hard scientific data on driver performance and driver
3 7 0
behavior. This void in the basic science approach cries out for solutions. Physicians are presented daily with the aftermath of traffic crashes. The conscientious physician is alert to factors that may put patients at risk for future crashes. Much more important than cervical spine radiographs, ibuprofen, and an ice pack is the physician’s counsel regarding avoidance of future motor vehicle crash. But what physician really understands the human factors that were at play when the crash occurred? Current estimates show that 80% of motor vehicle crashes are caused by driver error. Therefore it is highly predictable that, unless driver behavior and performance characteristics are analyzed and modified, the plague of the 20th century will continue to be with us well into the 21st. Sophisticated simulation of driver conditions and performance measurement may open a window to examine many factors that current, retrospective, epidemiologic research cannot. Problems such as cognitive deficits and medical conditions ubiquitous in the elderly and how they relate to driver performance may be elucidated. Therapeutic medications in any age group may alter performance to the point where a patient should modify his driving pattern, if not desist altogether. The interaction of drowsiness and low levels of alcohol needs to be studied prospectively. Many other problems that heretofore have defied definition because of their complexity may now be amenable to study. These include how alcohol tolerance affects the quantitative alcohol levels necessary to affect performance, the effects of illicit drugs and combinations of drugs, and many other problems. As computer technology continues to improve, the precision of the driving simulator will also improve. NADS provides an excellent opportunity for careful, well-designed prospective research into problems that have previously been inadequately studied. For those physicians who advocate public policy and injury control, the research tool provides an opportunity to promote sound public policy with good science. Researchers in injury control should become familiar with the methodology and limitations of NADS as they do with any other research tool, both for the planning of clinically relevant research and for inter-
pretation of published research using this technology.
ANNALS OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE
33:3 MARCH 1999
NHTSA Develops World’s Most Powerful Research Driving Simulator [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: NHTSA develops world’s most powerful research driving simulator. Ann Emerg Med March 1999;33:368-369.]
Carolinas Medical Center Charlotte, NC Section Editors Joan S Harris National Highway Traffic Safety Administration B Tilman Jolly, MD Department of Emergency Medicine George Washington University Washington DC Jeffrey W Runge, MD Department of Emergency Medicine Carolinas Medical Center Charlotte, NC Knox H Todd, MD, MPH Rollins School of Public Health Emory University Atlanta, GA Reprints not available from the editors. 47/1/96451
3 6 8
In the spring of 2000, the most technically sophisticated and powerful research driving simulator ever developed will be put into operation in the United States. Known as the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS), this $50 million research tool from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will define a new standard in high-fidelity driving simulation and human factors research capability. It will enable research engineers, scientists, physicians, pharmacologists, and others to investigate the complex interaction between the driver, vehicle, and roadway environment. This work will be conducted under situations that would most certainly result in severe injury or death to drivers in the real world, but with NADS that research can be conducted in the safety of the laboratory. The development of the NADS is in direct response to crash causation research that has shown that up to 80% of all motor vehicle crashes involve human factors issues. The NADS is a highly integrated real-time system that combines high-performance vehicle dynamic driving simulations with large-scale motion and high-fidelity visual and audio cues. These are presented to the subject driver, who is seated in an actual production automobile or truck cab (Figure). The test vehicle is placed within the Simulator.
The NADS uses cutting-edge technology for large-scale motion, high-resolution computer graphics, digital audio, high-speed fiberoptic communications and control, all driven by high-speed parallel-processing super computers. The simulator is being developed by the TRW Systems Integration Group of Redondo Beach, California, under contract to NHTSA. Construction is now under way at the University of Iowa Oakdale Research Park in a facility specifically designed for conducting advanced highway safety research. NHTSA has designed NADS so that researchers can create a driving research environment that is as close as possible to a real-world driving environment to ensure the validity of results without placing driving subjects at risk. The simulator will allow drivers to experience a complete range of actual driving maneuvers that can be programmed to vary from the most benign, normal driving, all the way to loss of vehicle control and incipient crash. Driving environments of all kinds can be instantly created to meet particular research objectives. Examples of these driving environments include lighting and weather conditions, pavement friction, traffic density, traffic control devices, highway and interchange designs, sudden intruding vehicles and/or pedestrians, and so on. The simulator will allow research that involves high workload levels or drivers who are medically, physically, or cognitively impaired because of alcohol, drugs, age, inexperience, or a variety of other conditions. NADS offers a capacity for experimental design conditions that mandate high levels of control or repeatability. Because of the unparalleled capabilities and fidelity of NADS, this will become the world’s best research tool to
ANNALS OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE
33:3 MARCH 1999
NHTSA NOTES
address these real-world problems while meeting stringent research requirements. There are a growing number of problems as we move into the new millennium for which NADS will provide the best means to obtain adequate resolution. Increasingly drivers will be challenged with new, advanced in-vehicle technologies that include, for example, complex communications, navigation or crash avoidance warning systems, roadway information systems, as well as access to E-mail and the Internet. Researchers have expressed concerns that these systems and functions have the potential to overload the driver, so NHTSA has embarked on a research program to address these concerns. Because NADS allows researchers to implement these technologies and functions under simulated realworld conditions that do not place a driver at risk, it will be possible to develop safe vehicle equipment designs and system functions. Designs developed under these conditions can then be translated to production vehicles with the knowledge that they have been pretested and proven safe and effective. As the population of drivers ages, there will be greater challenges to maintain both their mobility and safety, and in that arena NADS creates an ideal environment to study older driver capability. A variety of driver functions associated with an aging popula-
tion can be studied. In addition, for drivers of all ages, NADS will allow study of the implications of medical, physical, and pharmacologic impairments, and can provide an environment to foster the development and validation of driver ability screening tools. A number of driver impairment questions have been raised in recent years with regard to alcohol and drugs (illicit, prescription, and over-the-counter). The simulator environment allows safe study of the effect of these substances on driver function. Congress and others recently have focused attention on drowsy driver crashes and the development of in-vehicle warning devices designed to alert the sleepy driver. Drowsy driving has been of particular concern with regard to commercial drivers. These are all examples of research populations and driver functioning problems for which the potential uses for the NADS facility are clear. When construction is complete, NADS will provide an unmatched capability to obtain answers to critical human factors research questions without placing the subject driver in a risky situation—in essence, it will be the research tool of choice. For more information on NADS, please check the Web site at http://nhtsa.dot.gov/people/perform/nads/, or contact Dr H Keith Brewer at [email protected].
Faxed requests for a NADS information packet can also be made to 202-366-7236.
Commentary: Driver Performance and the Basic Sciences [Runge JW: Driver performance and the basic sciences [commentary]. Ann Emerg Med March 1999;33:369-370.] Motor vehicle crash injury is the plague of the 20th century, and it continues to be the scourge of our youth. Like other diseases, crash injury occurs because of an interaction between the agent of the disease, kinetic energy, a host, and the environment. It is difficult to imagine another disease entity that kills more than 40,000 people per year that, to this point, has had less basic research applied to defining the susceptibility characteristics of its host. Whether the disease is infectious, or heart attack, stroke, or cancer, understanding illnesses and cures begins with a foundation in basic science research. Only in the past 3 decades has injury truly been recognized as a disease with a definable epidemiology, making analysis and prevention a possibility. Although good basic research exists with regard to the interaction of the host with vectors of disease, such as motor
Figure.
National Advanced Driving Simulator.
MARCH 1999
33:3
ANNALS OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE
3 6 9
NHTSA NOTES
vehicles, few basic science studies have been accomplished in the elusive realm of driver performance and behavior. The NHTSA, in cooperation with TRW Corporation, has developed a very important basic science tool for the study of injury. The NADS is the injury researcher’s electron microscope into driver behavior. Built with the most modern engineering techniques and computer design, the extremely complex problem of human error in crash injury can be dissected and analyzed. Doubtless there are many uses for this technology already on the minds of crash researchers. The simulator will not be strictly the domain of established NHTSA engineers, however, but rather will be available to the research community at large for study of traffic injury. Emergency physicians and other injury specialists are invited to ponder those seemingly insolvable clinical problems of driver performance, and to collaborate with NHTSA and its engineers to find answers to those difficult questions. As I write this commentary, I arrived back home from attending a meeting of the North Carolina Governors Task Force on Driving While Impaired. Policymakers look to physicians and the scientific community for credible evidence on which to base public policy and legislation. A presentation by a member of the task force, a respected legislator, advocated further reductions in the legal limit for blood alcohol to .05 from our current .08. A study by a renowned alcohol researcher was cited, a retrospective analysis using the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) to compare proportions of crashes involving drunk drivers in 1 state over a 12-year period. The fact that public policy is at stake makes incomplete data reporting an alarming issue. However, this is typical of studies on which most driving laws are based. Yet another presentation was by a police officer who spoke of the merits of prosecuting drivers who exhibit certain signs and symptoms of drug impairment, irrespective of other toxicologic evidence. These proposals were based on interpretations of data reports with many missing cells. So what is to blame, the interpreter, or the lack of good data? It is apparent that much of the difficulty in developing public policy about drivers’ culpability in motor vehicle crashes relates to the lack of hard scientific data on driver performance and driver
3 7 0
behavior. This void in the basic science approach cries out for solutions. Physicians are presented daily with the aftermath of traffic crashes. The conscientious physician is alert to factors that may put patients at risk for future crashes. Much more important than cervical spine radiographs, ibuprofen, and an ice pack is the physician’s counsel regarding avoidance of future motor vehicle crash. But what physician really understands the human factors that were at play when the crash occurred? Current estimates show that 80% of motor vehicle crashes are caused by driver error. Therefore it is highly predictable that, unless driver behavior and performance characteristics are analyzed and modified, the plague of the 20th century will continue to be with us well into the 21st. Sophisticated simulation of driver conditions and performance measurement may open a window to examine many factors that current, retrospective, epidemiologic research cannot. Problems such as cognitive deficits and medical conditions ubiquitous in the elderly and how they relate to driver performance may be elucidated. Therapeutic medications in any age group may alter performance to the point where a patient should modify his driving pattern, if not desist altogether. The interaction of drowsiness and low levels of alcohol needs to be studied prospectively. Many other problems that heretofore have defied definition because of their complexity may now be amenable to study. These include how alcohol tolerance affects the quantitative alcohol levels necessary to affect performance, the effects of illicit drugs and combinations of drugs, and many other problems. As computer technology continues to improve, the precision of the driving simulator will also improve. NADS provides an excellent opportunity for careful, well-designed prospective research into problems that have previously been inadequately studied. For those physicians who advocate public policy and injury control, the research tool provides an opportunity to promote sound public policy with good science. Researchers in injury control should become familiar with the methodology and limitations of NADS as they do with any other research tool, both for the planning of clinically relevant research and for inter-
pretation of published research using this technology.
ANNALS OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE
33:3 MARCH 1999