Inside Virttex, Ford's Driver Distraction Simulator

An anonymous reader writes "After my collision the world went blank but I didn't see angels and harps because the highway and the crash situation were imaginary, created inside Ford's Virttex (virtual text track experiment cockpit simulator). Functioning much like a simulator for pilots, this domed virtual world on pitching and sliding stilts has been used to test car cockpits and instruments since 2001. It played a role in the development of recent center stacks such as MyFord Touch. In recent years, Ford used Virttex driver distraction research to learn more about what causes driver inattention and what countermeasures Ford can embed into cars to keep people like me from becoming another Darwinian statistic. It also gives Ford a leg up on the competition — Ford says it's the only automaker in the U.S. with a virtual reality simulator of this magnitude."

Re:We should test all drivers inside simulator als

[Nerdfest]

I would say that speeding is the cause of near zero traffic accidents. It merely magnifies other causes (and effects).

Re:We need these in driver license offices

[jxander]

Money, my dear boy.

How much does each one of those things cost? Multiply by the number of DMVs that administer driving tests. Might even need 2 or 3 per DMV.

I'm sure there are other reason as well. Moral guardians not being satisfied with "a video game" demonstrating the proper skills of real-world driving (even though you and I know better) or concerned parents blaming their Little Snowflake's failures on the machine. But money is almost certainly the main limiting factor.

Re:We should test all drivers inside simulator als

[AK Marc]

If you are a designated driver, and your friend is passed out in the back seat, drunk and you stop at a red light and the car behind you falls asleep (sober) and crashes into you, you do know how that gets recorded in statistics, right? It's "alcohol related" because one of the people involved was drunk (and asleep, even if not in control of either car). When *any* alcohol in either car (including the blood stream of the dead body in the trunk) is present, the crash is "alcohol related'. With a definition like that, I'm surprised how *few* crashes are alcohol related.