Smoothing steering to prevent accidents

A discovery about how drivers steer cars could pave the way for systems which can anticipate steering movements that could lead to dangerous situations and correct for them before they occur, according to researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. This could prevent skidding and mistakes made when drivers are tired, they claim.

It has been known for many years that drivers do not steer smoothly, even when guiding their car around a gentle curve. Rather, they tend to move the wheel in a jerky motion which, until now, has been unexplained and unpredictable.

Chalmers researcher Ola Benderius and Gustav Markkula made a link between steering and reaching for an object, which humans learn very early in their lives. When we reach, our hands move faster if the object we are reaching for is further away; the time taken to reach the object is the same regardless of how far away it is. ‘We immediately recognised this pattern from our measured steer signals,’ Benderius said in a statement. ‘It was a bit of a eureka moment. Was it possible that this basic human behaviour also controlled how we steer a car?’