Inattentive Driving Effects on Eye Movement and Driving Behavior

Many studies of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) have been conducted to reduce traffic accidents. Driver monitoring systems can detect dangerous driver behaviors and reduce traffic accidents through alarm and active safety systems. Data from the National Police Agency of Japan for 2017 show that the main cause of fatal traffic accidents is driver inattentiveness. Investigating eye movement characteristics and driving behavior during inattentive driving can reveal characteristics of inattentiveness. For this study, we designed a driving simulation experiment with subtasks while driving to assess the inattentive behavior of drivers. During the driving experiment, drivers were asked to drive normally, drive and answer arithmetic problems, or drive and answer questions about a map. Driver reaction times during emergency braking to a sudden appearance of a car at an intersection, sudden appearance of a pedestrian at a non-intersection, and steering performance on curved roads were assessed. In addition, we assessed gaze fixation time and driver eye movement velocity and direction. Inattentive driving resulted in a longer reaction time, more steering wheel operation, shorter fixation time, slower angular speed of eye movement, and lower frequency of left–right direction change.