LookOut: A Scenario-based Driving Simulator for Enhancing Hazard Detection and Avoidance

the goal of driver's education is to provide students with the skills necessary to safely and effectively operate a motor vehicle. While effective training has been implemented since the 1930s, research suggest opportunities to enhance driver hazard anticipation and avoidance, which could in turn dramatically impact public safety. Hazard-related training has traditionally been difficult to accomplish, with classroom exercises lacking impact and real-world driving experiences hard to constrain/keep safe. Fortunately, computer-based driving simulation has evolved to where well-designed training can be executed in a richly visualized, interactive, impactful manner. The focus of this program is to create a real-time, scenario-based desktop driving simulator that helps drviers with differing background (age,experience) gain greater awareness of hazards and safely avoid them. The work will create the simulator, an underlying training paradigm for hazard detection/response, and a database of hazards/scenarios that will be used in conjunction with it.