‚Driver Drowsiness‘ impairs safety of road traffic
Up to a quarter of accidents on German roads are attributed to driver drowsiness. These accidents tend to cause particularly high personal and property damage. Innovative assistance systems (drowsiness warning) warn the driver when a critical drowsiness threshold is reached. However, the problem is to provide a reliable measure of drowsiness.
The HFC Drowsiness Scale®
The HFC GmbH has developed a methodology to assess drivers’ drowsiness during night-time driving studies while using night vision systems, in order to end the test-drives when driver drowsiness reaches a critical level. The scale proved to be highly reliable and deployable. This methodology is based on the observation and evaluation of behavioral indicators that are associated with drowsiness, which can be reliably detected by trained observers. It is currently considered as the expert rating method of choice for a sophisticated assessment of the entire drowsiness spectrum.
As market leader in drowsiness assessment, our trained evaluators created and developed the scale to its current successfully deployed version 2.0. The HFC drowsiness scale is now registered as a trademark and offers numerous advantages:
It accurately and reliably differentiates various states of drowsiness and activation.- 9 sub-scales allow for a graded assessment of indicators of drowsiness, which serve as the basis for the overall evaluation.
- The MS-Excel template-based assessment facilitates the assessment and increases its quality
- The scale leads to an excellent overall consensus from various trained observers.
- Quality controls guarantee the high validity of drowsiness assessment.
