A dashboard computer system that monitors the delay between a driver鈥檚 eye movement and steering could be used to identify drunk drivers, claims a UK researcher.
Dilwyn Marple-Horvat, at the University of Bristol, tested the eye-to-steering coordination of people playing a computer driving game who were given alcoholic drinks.
Previous research has shown that drivers normally look towards a corner approximately 0.85 seconds before turning a car鈥檚 steering wheel. Marple-Horvat found that this time decreases significantly with alcohol.
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鈥淭he problem is, when you get drunk, you start moving your eyes later and later,鈥� Marple-Horvat told 快猫短视频. With two shots of vodka, the time between looking and steering decreased to 0.5 seconds or less. In some cases, drinking four shots of vodka resulted in no time difference at all.
A camera was used to monitor eye movement and a computer matched this to steering wheel movement. Marple-Horvat says a similar system could be installed in cars and used to automatically alert police or even slow a car down if it detects that a driver鈥檚 coordination is impaired.
Key to coordination
Marple-Horvat has previously studied the relationship between eye movement and coordination in people with a rare degenerative brain disease called cerebellar ataxia. He believes that vision normally helps trigger activity in parts of the brain that are key to coordination.
鈥淲ith alcohol, the bit of the brain waiting for help [with movement] either doesn鈥檛 get it or gets the wrong help,鈥� he says.
Michael Land of the University of Sussex says the delay between seeing the corner and responding is interesting: 鈥淚t implies that the delay is maintained actively and reverts to a simple reaction time when you鈥檙e drunk.鈥�
But Land notes that such a system would cost around 拢30,000. He also says getting drivers to cooperate may be problematic: 鈥淚 can鈥檛 believe that any decent sober driver will want this thing in the car, and drunk drivers certainly won鈥檛.鈥�
Previous in-car systems have been designed to watch a driver鈥檚 eyes to see if they are falling asleep or detect whether they are blinking irregularly, which may imply alcohol intake.