Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Introduction
This chapter provides an introduction to the topic of driver drowsiness detection.
Through crash statistics and other related data, it demonstrates the importance and
seriousness of the subject. Moreover, it introduces some of the terminology and
concepts related to this topic.
1.1
The Problem of Driver Drowsiness
The interest in equipping vehicles with driver drowsiness detection systems has been
motivated by alarming statistics, such as the 2013 World Health Organization report
[
15
] stating that: 1.24 million people die on the road every year; approximately 6 %
of all the accidents are caused by drivers driving in a drowsy state; and most of the
accidents of this type result in fatalities.
Shocking statistics revealed by World Health Organization (WHO) in a 2009
report [
14
] showed that more than 1.2 million people die on roads around the
world every year. Moreover, an additional 20-50 million individuals suffer non-fatal
injuries. Such astonishing numbers have triggered community action. For example,
the United Nations (UN) General Assembly dedicated the decade between 2011 and
2020 to be the
Decade of Action for Road Safety
. A recently published follow-up
report by the WHO [
15
] showed that even though some progress has been made, the
shocking figure of 1.24 million deaths caused by road accidents per year remains
essentially the same. An analysis of the number of deaths by age range (Fig.
1.1
)
shows that almost 40 % are young people, below the age of 30.
A Report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
from 1994 [
6
] provided statistics on how many accidents are caused by drowsy
driving. An average annual total of 6.3 million police reported crashes occurred
during the period between 1989 and 1993 in the United States. Of these, approx-
imately 100,000 crashes per year (i.e., 1.6 % of 6.3 million) were identified with
