SAFE DRIVING MONITORING SYSTEM

• US 20130297097A1
• Filed: 03/21/2013
• Published: 11/07/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Octo Advisory Inc.
• Original Assignee: Speed Demon Inc.
• Inventors: Fischer, Richard W., Fischer, Jonathan R., Ricaurte, William A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,477,639 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/26 specially adapted for navigation in a road network
• CPC Class Codes: G01P 1/122 Speed recorders
• CPC Class Codes: G01P 1/14 for permanent recording G01P1/125 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/35 Clustering; Classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/0962 having an indicator mounted inside the vehicle, e.g. giving voice messages
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/205 Indicating the location of the monitored vehicles as destination, e.g. accidents, stolen, rental

Abstract

A method and system for detecting unsafe or suspect activities such as distracted driving associates distracted driving events to the road type, vehicle speed and vehicle acceleration (positive, negative and lateral) at the time of the distracted driving event, and identifies severe distracted driving events from a large population of minor events using a statistical distribution such as a Cauchy distribution equation. The system employs a smartphone application (App) coupled with a central server that computes driver safety scores which relate time of day, road type, vehicle speed, vehicle acceleration (positive, negative and lateral) and distracted driving using the Cauchy distribution equation. The server renders summary and detail reports of driving scores and distracted driving events to concerned parties including insurance companies, fleet managers, vehicle owners and the parents/guardians of teenaged drivers.

Claims

1. A method for tracking driving habits, comprising:

associating a personal device with a driver in a vehicle;

determining that the driver is engaging in a suspect activity while driving;

comparing the suspect activity with a severity scale indicative of a relative risk of the activity;

computing a score based on the comparison; and

reporting the determined suspect activity and the score to a repository for accumulating a driving history of the driver.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein comparing further comprises:

determining a metric associated with the suspect activity;

computing a driving parameter associated with the determined metric;

comparing the driving parameter to a statistical distribution of events of other drivers for the same driving parameter; and

concluding a high severity if the driving parameter is outside a predetermined range of the statistical distribution.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the suspect activity is speeding, the driving parameter is vehicle speed and the statistical distribution is a Cauchy distribution.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the suspect activity includes invoking applications on the personal device, and comparing the invoked application to a set of distracting applications.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the suspect activity includes:

receiving a user selection of a road type and a threshold speed for that road type;

determining that the vehicle is traveling on the road type; and

determining that the vehicle is exceeding the threshold speed for the road type.

7. The method of claim 3 further comprising associating the personal device with the vehicle by:

identifying a positioning device disposed in the vehicle of a monitored driver, the positioning device being a telematics unit responsive to the personal device.

8. The method of claim 3 wherein the suspect activity includes at least one of speeding, sharp turning, sudden acceleration, sudden deceleration, the metric includes one of speed, angular velocity, linear acceleration, and the driving parameter includes speed and angular force measurable on a linear scale to driving parameters of other drivers.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising confirming operation of the personal device by:

receiving a location indication of the personal device;

receiving a location indication of the positioning device;

comparing the received location indications to conclude driver presence in the vehicle.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising concluding passenger status by

receiving a location indication of the personal device

receiving a location indication of the positioning device;

identifying a mismatch of the location indications as indicative of passenger status of a user corresponding to the personal device.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising invoking the application via near field communication (NFC) based on proximity to the vehicle, the application invoked automatically each time the driver enters the vehicle.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining a plurality of the suspect activities and corresponding score and computing an aggregate score based on the plurality of reported suspect activities.

12. The method of claim 3 wherein determining speed further comprises receiving a plurality of GPS signals over a time interval, the GPS signals received via a telematics appliance in the vehicle, such that a native GPS receiver on the personal device imposes no battery drain.

13. The server of claim 12 further comprising an event reporter, the event reporter configured to report the determined suspect activity and the score to a repository for accumulating a driving history of the driver and to a rendering device corresponding to a supervisory authority.

14. The server of claim 13 wherein the event reporter is configured to generate statistical reports indicative of a summary of suspect events over a predetermined interface, and specific event reports indicative of suspect events having a substantial impact on the score so as to indicate an immediate corrective response.

15. The server of claim 12 wherein the scoring logic is configured to aggregate suspect events gathered during a monitored interval, and employ a Cauchy distribution for computing a severity of the event, the severity determining an impact on the score.

18. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

receiving a user selection of a road type and a threshold speed for that road type;

determining that the vehicle is traveling on the road type; and

determining that the vehicle is exceeding the threshold speed for the road type.

11-1. A server for aggregating and reporting distracted driving events comprising

a repository for storing suspect events received from personal devices corresponding to a plurality of monitored drivers

an access connection from the server to a personal device of each of the plurality of monitored drivers;

and

scoring logic for receiving the suspect events from the personal devices and computing a score indicative of safe driving habits exhibited by the monitored drivers.

12-2. The server of claim 11 further comprising a statistical model, the statistical model responsive to driving parameter associated with a determined metric, the statistical model for comparing the driving parameter to a statistical distribution of events of other drivers for the same driving parameter, and concluding a high severity if the driving parameter is outside a predetermined range of the statistical distribution.

16. A method for tracking driving events, comprising:

determining, via a personal device associated with a driver in a vehicle, a speed of the vehicle based on relative positioning of the personal device;

receiving a user defined speed threshold corresponding to a road type determined from the position of the vehicle, the threshold defined for the road type; and

comparing the speed to the received threshold and reporting the determined speed and the road type if the determined speed exceeds the threshold corresponding to the road type currently being traveled.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein determining the position further comprises receiving a positioning signal from a telematics appliance in the vehicle, the telematics appliance receiving the positioning signal from a remote source, receiving the positioning signal from the telematics appliance consuming less energy than receiving the positioning signal from the remote source.

19. A computer program product having computer program instructions stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium for performing a method method for tracking driving habits, comprising:

associating an application on a personal device with a driver in a vehicle;

determining that the driver is engaging in a suspect activity while driving; and

transmitting the suspect event for comparing the suspect activity with a severity scale indicative of a relative risk of the activity, the transmission for computing a score based on the comparison reporting the determined suspect activity and the score to a repository for accumulating a driving history of the driver.

20. The computer program product of claim 19 further comprising:

determining a metric associated with the suspect activity;

computing a driving parameter associated with the determined metric;

transmitting the driving parameter for comparison with a statistical distribution of events of other drivers for the same driving parameter.