Availability of Pedaling Depth Monitor for Preventing Unintended Acceleration

Unintended Acceleration (UA) is a type of automobile accidents with automatic transmissions typically begin when the driver starts a driving cycle following to presses the one’s right foot on the brake while shifting from park to a drive or reverse gear. These accidents of UA cause extremely frightening and in the worst case have resulted in accidents which have been sometimes with injuries or death to the driver or pedestrians.The accident by UA becomes a serious issue in Japan with increasing in elderly drivers due to the aging of society. This study aims to comprehend a mechanism of pedaling misapplications to prevent a serious accident by interfaces implementing “Pedaling Depth Monitor”. The pedal misapplication prevention systems such as the automatic brakes, the suppressing accelerations and the gear lock mechanisms managed for avoiding the accident are still not spread because those system must be implemented into the hardware mechanical systems of the vehicle. In fact, the accidents of the pedal misapplication change in around from 6,000 to 7,000 cases a year in Japan. In addition, the accidents by UA cannot be completely prevented because the safe equipment is not perfect in general. This study intends to develop a system to prevent serious accidents by the interfaces implementing Pedaling Depth Monitor.This study has carried out two experiments to confirm availability of pedaling depth monitor. The first one is to examine cognitive processes of pedaling errors by Stop-signal task with dual task operations. The participants trialed stop-signal task with right foot alternative pedaling in the intervals of calculation tasks. This experiment resulted that there was an influence of time pressure to the pedaling operation. Then, the second experiment investigated awareness of notification which is displayed on the stepping depth monitor to be recognized by the participant. The results indicated the visual presentation which is easily recognized by the participants peripheral vision assuming the driving situation.