South Korea is planning to make sure elderly drivers are fit to drive, and the way they are doing that is quite interesting.
The National Police Agency of Korea is starting research and development for a three-year virtual-reality-based driving suitability assessment plan with a budget of 3.6 billion won.
Police statistics show that the number of traffic accidents per 10,000 license holders is nearly double for drivers over the age of 65.
The idea of using virtual reality to determine whether a driver is fit to drive is novel, though there is no details about how it will be implemented. The paper titled "Driving Performance Evaluation Correlated to Age andVisual acuity Based on VR Technologies" was published in the Journal of Advanced Transportation in 2020. It was published by the department of transportation engineering at the University of Seoul, and details how a virtual reality system may be used for driving performance testing.
The paper explains that the driving performance was evaluated with a driving simulation, which included driving behaviors in different experimental scenarios, including daytime and nighttime driving on a rural highway, and unexpected incident situations.
The drivers were presented with three unexpected incidents, and then measured their reactions. The credit is given to Hindawi/Sooncheon Hwang and their associates.
The ability to control all variables and produce exact data on the drivers' performance was the main advantage of testing the drivers in a simulation. Many participants with lower visual acuity levels drove with greater variations in speed, failed to brake appropriately when confronted with sudden incidents, and failed to avoid crashes according to the authors of the paper.
