Cecily O'Connor
RedwoodAge.com
Feeling a little road rage lately? You're not alone. And the next car you buy may use biometrics to keep your frustration from shifting into overdrive.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ford have teamed up in a six-month research project to explore how technology can reduce driver stress.
Drivers feel a "greater level of anxiety than in the past, both from situations inside and outside the vehicle," said Joseph Coughlin, founder and director of MIT's AgeLab, an initiative focused on developing technologies that improve older adults' quality of life. "This arises, in part, from the chronic stress in individuals' daily lives combined with longer commute times, increased driving demands due to traffic congestion and deteriorating infrastructure."
The project will identify various stress-inducing situations and monitor a driver's reaction to the situations using biometrics. For example, some drivers find the pressure is particularly acute during the holidays when they are fighting long lines, crowded parking lots and icy, wintry roads.
The research will help automakers build stress fighters into the next generation of cars. The first car to slip in stress-reducing features - such as cruise control with collision warning and a voice-activated communications system - will be the 2010 Lincoln MKS.
"We strongly believe that driving can be made safer by reducing the stress load placed on a driver," said Jeff Rupp, a Ford manager for active safety research.
While road rage knows no age, the Ford project adds to several others focused on age-related driver safety in recent years. For example, Allstate recently led a brain fitness program in Pennsylvania designed to improve cognitive functioning and a driver's visual alertness.
It's become an area of accelerated interest, given that there are 78 million boomers aged 46-64. People 65 and older represent the fastest-growing segment of the US population.
Greater Anxiety
Since 2004, Ford and MIT's AgeLab - in conjunction with the US Department of
Transportation's New England University Transportation Center - have been
working on ways to improve driver wellness.
One area of emphasis has been monitoring biometrics such as heart rate, skin conductivity and eye movement. MIT researchers said that through the current research project they hope to create an "embedded detection system" that better links driver and vehicle.
"Increasing human-vehicle connectivity through biometrics may provide the next major breakthrough in vehicle safety and lead the development of aware vehicle systems," said Bryan Reimer, an MIT scientist working on the project.
