Identifying High-Risk Older Drivers by Head-Movement Monitoring Using a Commercial Driver Monitoring Camera

Older drivers experience a high rate of crashes due to road intersections, unseen objects, and failure to find the traffic signals. These characteristics would be recognized if a system could watch and monitor the behaviors of the drivers inside their car. Therefore, in this study, current advances in driver monitoring cameras are used for measuring the head movements of older drivers to evaluate the visual intent of the driver. Several quantitative metrics that compute the temporal and spatial aspects of head movements allow for assessing the behaviors of older and middle-aged drivers. A driving simulator study using urban road scenarios shows that at high vehicle speed, on average, older drivers move their heads more slowly within a narrower range and glance too quickly to recognize surrounding traffic correctly. Correlation analysis validated the high prediction capabilities of head-movement measures towards the future evaluation of driving risks.