In-Vehicle Data Recorder for Evaluation of Driving Behavior and Safety

This paper describes the overall framework and components of an in-vehicle data recorder (IVDR) called DriveDiagnostics and presents results from a study to validate its performance. This IVDR has been designed to monitor and analyze driver behavior not only in crash or precrash events but also in normal driving situations. It records the movement of the vehicle and uses this information to indicate overall trip safety. A validation study involved 33 drivers whose vehicles were instrumented with the IVDR. The experiment first included a blind profiling stage in which drivers did not receive any feedback from the system; that stage was followed by a feedback stage in which drivers had access to personal web pages with the information recorded by the system. Data collected in the blind profiling stage was used to investigate the connection between driver safety indices as captured by the system and historic crash data. The results show significant correlations between the two data sets, suggesting that the driving risk indices can be used as indicators of the risk of involvement in car crashes. This connection enabled investigation of the potential impact of the system on driving behavior and on safety. The results show that the initial exposure of drivers to the system has a significant positive impact on their behavior and on safety. Access to the feedback provided by the system has further impact on driver performance. However, if follow-up efforts are not made, neither of these positive impacts is sustained over time.